


a study in love, conducted by barry j. bluejeans

by prouveyrac



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, a century long love story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 11:45:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18964582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prouveyrac/pseuds/prouveyrac
Summary: "He finally understood that he was made of love, defined by love, and he wanted nothing more than to share it with the world."A century long study on how to be in love was a beautiful thing. Conducted by Barry J. Bluejeans, Head Science Officer for the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration.





	a study in love, conducted by barry j. bluejeans

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys!!
> 
> so, if you follow my tumblr, you've probably seen me post about this fic for the past month and a half bc, not gonna lie, there were times that i was more stressed about this fic than i was over my finals!!!
> 
> ever since i finished balance for the first time back in december, i've wanted to write a fanfic about barry and lup's love throughout the stolen century, and so i thought, why not try to cover parts of a century in one fic?
> 
> this is probaby my favorite fic that i've ever written, or at least definitely on that "top 5" list, so i hope you enjoy reading it as much as i enjoyed writing it :)

Barry Bluejeans knew love.

Barry loved the small farm-town he lived in. Their land was fertile, the weather treated them kindly, and the residents even more so, especially after his father passed. He hadn’t been old enough to remember him, but he would never forget the choruses of, “Your father was a good man, Barry,” and “Are you ever gonna go by Sildar? It was what your pop always called you, you know?” that he would hear for the rest of his life.

(Or, at least, what Barry thought would be for the rest of his life, before he knew that the rest of his life would be very, very long and that these people, from the town he loved, would not be in it for much longer.)

“You are who you wish to be,” his mother, tender and loving Marlena, said to Barry, age nine, cupping his round cheeks gently. “You are Bartholomew Sildar Jean Bluejeans-Hallwinter and, whether you are Bartholomew Bluejeans or Sildar Hallwinter or what have you, you will be known and you will be so, so loved.”

Friends of his father called him _Sildar_ . His mother called him _Bartholomew_ and _Barold_ and _Barry_ and _my dear_ . Barry answered to all of it, but called himself _Barry_. Never his full name. Too much of a mouthful, too much of a title and, sometimes, too intimate. Whenever someone used his full name, it felt personal, like moments that were few and far between. He couldn’t just waste them.

Barry loved his studies. Sickness found him at a young age and, while the other children played in the dusty streets and the pouring rain, Barry found better comfort, better solace, when his small fingers wrapped around the bindings of books. And, when he grew taller and wider and his lungs started to gain back the strength they lost, hands started to wrap around quills and crumpled sheets up paper and his view was no longer just turned down to words that people before him already wrote but, instead, it began to look up as well. Looked up at the stars twinkling in the sky and the leaves blowing in the wind and the clouds blowing across the sky and the birds singing all that they knew.

So often, Barry pushed open his window and felt a warm breeze brush against him as sunlight peered into his room—always covered in papers and books—and he breathed everything he saw in and watched and learned and loved.

Barry loved his home. He loved the fencing around their fields, and the chickens that scratched at the dirt and followed his mother wherever she went. He loved the desk he built for himself when he was fifteen that would remain his for the next twenty-three years and, in that, would stand through the countless reports and books and papers and microscopes and samples and clothes left on top of it.

He loved the safety his home provided. The town around him was so kind, but so often the world was not, and Barry would rather not be one to experience it. He loved being able to step out his door and look up and down and everywhere, and still have the safety of his home ready to embrace him. Barry studied and wrote and read and, through everything he learned about the world around him and what it held in store for those who wished to see it all, Barry was safe.

Barry loved his mother, Marlena Rosemarie Bluejeans (and, later, Marlena Rosemarie Bluejeans-Hallwinter). She was the best person Barry knew he would ever know. She was kind and gentle, with enough warmth from her smile to replace the sun and the softest, greying hair Barry had ever seen. She was soft and, after the passing of Barry’s father, she was strong, though Barry never thought that one contradicted the other. His mother was wonderful and powerful. His mother was always there.

“Go, my dear,” she told Barry, age eleven, when the new library had just opened up in town. With her hands gently on his shoulders, she guided him to the front door and, when he looked up at her, blue eyes wide behind glasses that were too big for his face, she smiled warmly down at him. “I’ll be here when you come back.”

“Go, Barry,” she told Barry, age eighteen, when he received a letter of acceptance from Headmaster Roland of The Academy for the Magically Gifted. She reached across the table and took Barry’s hands, always feeling like they were buzzing with magic, in her own. “I’ll be here when you come back.”

“Go, and show others what you know,” she told Barry, age thirty-four with a handful of degrees under his belt. In his hands, he clutched an application to be a professor at the very same Academy he attended all those years ago. The Headmaster already told him that he had a position lined up for him, all he had to do was apply. “I’ll be here when you come back.”

She was always there, greeting Barry with the warmth of a thousand suns.

Barry Bluejeans knew love. He felt like he was made of it.

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans, typically called Dr. Bluejeans by most now, loved his work. He taught in a classroom that he had known for four years now, alongside other professors that knew him well, and even Barry would admit that the Academy felt like a second home to him.

Which is why when Headmaster Roland, a greying man well up in years now, dropped a pamphlet with the letters _IPRE_ written largely across the top, Barry looked up at him with wide eyes.

He knew of the IPRE, more commonly known as the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. A scientific organization—fueled by the essence of the Light of Creation—that was dedicated to looking past the world they lived on now and, instead, into ones thousands and thousands of planes away. It sounded like a dream: a dream that Barry longed and yearned for, but feared would turn into a nightmare.

The pamphlet falling onto his desk, covering papers he had been grading for hours now, made it feel like that dream was just within reach.

“Sir?” Barry questioned, furrowing his eyebrows. “What’s this?”

Headmaster Roland smiled. “Don’t play coy with me, Barry,” he said and tapped the pamphlet with his pointer finger. “I know that you know exactly what this is.”

The Headmaster was right. Not only had Barry been following the news about the Institute, but he had actually conducted some of the studies looking into what they might find. If Barry flipped through the pamphlet, he knew he would find his name credited at least a few times.

“Well, yes, I do,” Barry said, looking back down at the colorful pamphlet. “But… what about it?”

“The captain, Captain Davenport, is here.”

“Okay?”

“He’s here for you.”

Barry stared up at the Headmaster and ever-so-eloquently asked, “What?”

The Headmaster laughed and shook his head, as if Barry’s confusion was amusing to him (it probably was). “They’re planning an exploration outside of this plane.”

Barry nodded, trying to act as if his heart wasn’t about to beat out of his chest. “I know.”

“And they need recruits,” the Headmaster continued. “You’re the first one they wanted.”

For a split second, Barry could see nothing but stars and planets and planes farther than the eye could see.

“Me?” Barry shook his head. “Why?”

“Because look at all you know, Barry!” The Headmaster exclaimed, laughing louder and gesturing to the pamphlet. “You’re probably the most cited person in that damn thing, and that isn’t even half the research done!”

Barry balked and, looking back down at the pamphlet, stumbled out, “A-Are you sure, sir? I mean, I have classes to teach, and-”

“You’re a man of science,” the Headmaster interrupted, suddenly serious. “Are you not?”

“I love science,” Barry said, a statement he had thought time and time before.

“Then why are you trying to talk yourself out of this?”

Barry thought.

Nothing about space travel was safe. The spaceship could rip itself apart before they even left the atmosphere. If the journey took longer than expected, they could run out of resources. The crewmates could be unbearable. They could encounter nothing out there, and all his research would be for naught. They could encounter something too big for the mind, too dangerous for them, and they could die with no one to find them.

It was terrifying, and Barry loved every single thing about it.

“I-I’m not talking myself out of this,” Barry said, as if he wasn’t doing just that. “Where- where’s Captain Davenport?”

Captain Davenport was in the Headmaster’s office and, with each step Barry took closer, his heartbeat pounded louder in his ears. The Headmaster sent him on his own, claiming that it wasn’t his place to speak to the Captain with Barry and, even when Barry’s hand was on the doorknob to the office, he wondered whether this would be easier if he had someone else to speak for him.

Instead, he released a deep sigh, and pushed open the Headmaster’s door.

The red-headed gnome, Captain Davenport, was looking up out the window at the sky above and, when Barry entered, he looked over his shoulder and hummed. “Dr. Bluejeans,” he said, turning to fully face him. His hands were clasped behind his back. “Thank you for coming to meet with me. It’s good to see you again.”

Barry had met Captain Davenport once before, and he was just as stolid then as he was now.

“You too, Captain,” Barry said, figuring (and hoping) that just calling him _Captain_ would be enough for pleasantries. He almost followed up with telling him that he could just call him _Barry,_ but he had a feeling that the captain wouldn’t listen to that. “I, uh, heard you wanted to talk about the Institute?”

Captain Davenport nodded and stepped forward. Barry felt awkward towering over someone with such an intense presence, but he forced himself to keep eye contact. “That’s exactly what I came here for,” he said, looking up at Barry. “I know that I don’t have to explain to you what we do at the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, but I still think it would be beneficial to note that we are planning a departure in the next coming months.”

Barry nodded. “Yeah- Yes, I’ve heard. Congratulations on being named Captain… Captain Davenport.”

Behind his mustache, Barry actually saw a hint of a smirk on Captain Davenport’s face. “Thank you. It’s a very… fitting title,” he said. “But I’m sure you know that I didn't just come here to talk about my own position within the Institute.”

Barry nodded and, scratching the back of his neck, flicked his eyes up to the window before back to the captain. “Uh, yeah, Headmaster Roland told me that you… are looking for _me_?”

Captain Davenport nodded. “Correct,” he affirmed. “We are still very early on in the recruitment process. If I’m being honest, your position is currently the only one we have been looking to fill so far.”

Chills ran down Barry’s back at the phrase _your position_. “What’s the position?”

The other man cocked his head. “Head Science Officer, of course.”

_Head Science Officer Bartholomew Sildar Jean Bluejeans-Hallwinter._

_Head Science Officer Barry J. Bluejeans._

Barry liked the latter option a lot more. He _loved_ the latter option. It had a ring to it, and people wouldn’t stumble over each part of it. It would still be his name, but reserved for those he wished, instead of being printed on a name-tag too small to fit each name comfortably.

Still, though, he couldn’t stop himself from asking the one question that had been plaguing him: “Why me?”

Captain Davenport huffed out a laugh. “Because a person of your brilliance even thinks to ask that question.”

“I-I was just wondering,” Barry mumbled, feeling his face flush.

“And that is my serious answer,” Captain Davenport said. “Ever since I was named Captain for the Institute, do you know how many people have come up to me to coincidentally talk about their achievements? To tell me about how they were the top of their graduating class, or about how they were hailed in their department?”

Barry didn’t answer. He didn’t have to. He worked with these people.

“But you, Dr. Bartholomew Bluejeans-Hallwinter? And that’s even being generous with the name on your doctorate,” Captain Davenport continued. Barry blinked at the sudden usage of half his full name. “I spoke with you for the better part of an hour and, even at the mention of the Institute, you didn’t shove your credentials down my throat, no accomplishments or feats of excellency. You just talked about your own personal theories as to what’s outside our own plane of existence, and it was brilliant.”

Barry, although flattered, raised an eyebrow. “So you want me… because of my modesty?”

The captain smirked. “No, Doctor,” he said. “I want you on our team because you don’t have to brag about your genius. People just know it from hearing you speak. On my ship, there won’t be enough room for egos. You have to prove that you can handle it from the moment training begins, and I think you’re the man we need.”

Barry’s eyes were wide. “C-Captain Davenport, I-”

Captain Davenport held up his hand. “You have time to decide,” he said and, reaching into his back pocket, he took out a folded piece of paper and held it out to Barry. “Just… think on it, alright? Let us know within a week, and we can begin your training and the rest of the recruitment process.”

Barry, wordlessly, took the paper. Unfolding it, he blinked multiple times down at it to make sure he was reading it correctly.

It was an acceptance letter with, all the way at the bottom, a place for his signature.

Barry gaped back up at Captain Davenport.

“You already have the position,” Captain Davenport said. “We just need your answer. Of course, take the week, talk it over with-”

“I’ll do it,” Barry rushed out, surprising the both of them.

The two men, in a moment of silence, stared at each other.

“You will?” Captain Davenport asked.

Barry nodded and his knees felt like they were about to start shaking and his heart was certainly pounding at a dangerous rate and his head hurt and his fingers wrinkled the edges of the paper, and he loved all of it.

“Yes,” Barry said, composing his voice to the best of his ability. “I- I will be the Head Science Officer for the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration.”

Captain Davenport stared up at him for a moment longer before a smile broke across his face. “Perfect,” he said. “All that’s left for you to do is sign.”

Barry did and, in messy cursive, he signed, _Barry J. Bluejeans_.

It wasn’t until Barry stepped into his home, warm from the summer heat, and saw his mother, who had recently come down with a cough, that the weight of what Barry chose hit him straight in the gut.

“I have to take back my agreement,” Barry rushed out (after he had given an even more panicked run down of what happened with Captain Davenport). “I- what the hell was I thinking? I can’t- I can’t _leave his plane of existence!_ There’s- there’s so much to be done here, I need to go and speak with-”

“Bartholomew,” his mother said and, despite her voice being so soft, it was all Barry heard. She hadn’t used his full name in quite some time. “Go.”

Barry, who had been pacing wildly through his kitchen, froze and turned to face his mother seated at the table. “But what about you?” His voice was quiet, barely there.

Marlena Bluejeans smiled and, with tears shining in the corners of her eyes, said, “I’ll be here when you come back.”

* * *

 

Barry was thirty-eight and, after almost a year of his own personal preparation (and a much shorter time of meeting the other crew members), the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration was preparing to leave this place of existence within the next twenty-four hours.

The work had been hard and stressful and, hell, Barry loved every moment of it.

He really loved the red robe, too.

There were seven of them overall and, frankly, Barry believed that Davenport put together a fairly good team. It took a couple months after Barry was reported, painstaking care being put into choosing just the right people for this first mission, and, eventually, Barry started to hear names.

First came a dwarven man named Merle Highchurch. He was titled the Biologist and Resident Medic of the crew, though Barry thought he had some… odd practices for both. Still, though, Barry thought he was a good guy. Definitely one that wouldn’t be boring to have on a two month expedition with.

“Barry, listen,” Merle had said to him about ten minutes into them meeting. “I’m all for being upfront with people, you know? Telling the truth and all that shit.”

Barry, amused, raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Merle continued, waving a hand about. “And, you know what I think about all this? This planet expedition and all that?”

Barry, smirking yet wondering if he should really be indulging in this, asked, “What’s that?”

“That this is some crazy shit!” Merle laughed. “I mean, think about what we’re fuckin’ doing here! You and me and the good ole captain and whoever else they bring here, we’re gonna be hightailing out of this existence and into another one!”

Barry actually laughed and nodded. “Well, yeah,” he said. “That is some crazy shit, I guess.”

Next came Magnus Burnsides, a kid of barely twenty years old and a complete powerhouse, which brought no surprise when Davenport announced that he would be Head of Security. From the moment he met the guy, Barry could see his impulsivity, his impatience to get off this planet and explore others. Barry was just glad to know that there would be a good energy on the ship.

“I just think every team needs muscle, you know?” Magnus had been saying to him. “And I figured I’d be that for us, yeah?”

Initially, Barry had thought that he (and Merle and Davenport) could handle themselves fine on their own, but then he saw what Magnus was bringing to the table and figured a little extra power wouldn’t hurt. Davenport had said that the Starblaster (which was the official confirmed name) didn’t have room for egos, but he had a feeling Magnus was harmless in that sense, if a bit excitable.

“Well, I think we’ll definitely need that when we’re travelling,” Barry said.

“Yeah, like, who knows what we’ll find out there!” Magnus grinned, as if the dangers they could run into seemed fun to him. “I just… have to see what’s out there.”

Third came Lucretia, though Barry should have expected that. Any person at least slightly involved in academia had heard of Lucretia, and Barry was no stranger. Despite having never met her, the Academy had wanted nothing more than to get the eighteen year old genius into the Magic Program. She ended up choosing a different school, one miles and miles away, though news quickly travelled through the halls of the Academy when she was signed on as the Chronicler.

“I’ve actually read some of your work,” Barry had said when Davenport introduced them. “It was all very- _incredibly_ good.”

“Oh-” Lucretia smiled and adjusted the strap of her bag over her shoulder “-Thank you, I… I didn’t really think many people would take note of me coming here.”

Barry laughed. “I don’t think any of us expected the reception we’ve gotten,” he said. “But at least you’re going to have some great stories to tell when you start your next semester.”

Lucretia laughed, soft and quiet, and nodded. “An opportunity like this?” she asked, brushing a fallen curl behind her ear. “I- I had to be a part of it. I've spent so long reading the journals of other adventurers and chroniclers… I have to be the one to finally write it all down.”

Taako and Lup were the final editions to the Starblaster crew, and the new chefs and Arcanists came in like an explosion. Or perhaps they came in with a _literal_ explosion. Barry hadn’t been there when the other crewmates met the elven twins, but apparently the sister, Lup, was shooting actual sparks out of her fingers while her brother, Taako, watched with a shit-eating grin. From what he heard, they were loud and quick-witted. Apparently Taako, reserved and sharp with his tongue, and Lup, unapologetically larger than life itself, had been very keen on, instead of fitting neatly into the Institute, making it adjust to them.

And Barry, reflecting on his own aspects in comparison to the twins, was terrified.

He met Lup first, and it wasn’t the typical, formal Davenport-lead introduction. He had been coming out of one of the Institute’s labs after running hours of tests when, nearly scaring him half to death, he heard someone shout down the hall, “Hey! You’re Bluejeans, right?”

Barry, forcing himself into composure, spun to face the figure coming down the hall. His eyes fell upon an elven woman with a red robe billowing out behind her. Long hair dyed pink fell almost to her waist, and dark brown roots were just beginning to grow back in. Even in the distance, Barry could see twinkling earrings dangling from her ears. Light shone in from the windows that reached all the way down the hall and, for just a moment, she looked like she was glowing.

Barry, without even being conscious of thinking it, thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

“What?” Barry asked stupidly.

“Have you seen Taako?” She asked, either ignoring his question or thinking it was just his way of a rude greeting. Against the tiled floors, her shoes tapped quickly as she bounded towards him.

“What?”

She stopped and arched an eyebrow, an amused smirk spreading across face. “Taako, you know, the other elf here? Same pink hair but he’s got a shorter look, red robe, pretty cool but still not as cool as me?”

Barry blinked. “Is- is that something I would be able to tell, like, visually?”

She cocked her head and her grin only grew. “Absolutely.”

“Uh, no, but, I, uh,” he stumbled out before finally shaking his head. “Uh, no. I haven’t seen him.”

“Oh.” She frowned. “Bummer.”

“Yeah,” Barry said. “Sorry?”

She shrugged and spun on her heel. “Oh well,” she said, beginning her trek back down the hall. “He’s somewhere, you know? This is a big fucking building, but I’m pretty good at looking for things, so-”

Barry, finally gaining control over his voice, called down to her, “I’m Barry, by the way.” She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “Uh, Barry Bluejeans.”

“Figured,” she said. “I’d be pretty fucked up if the one scientist wearing bluejeans wasn’t Barry Bluejeans.” He opened his mouth to say something, but she pressed on with, “Hey, you go by Barold?”

“I mean, yeah, sometimes,” Barry said with a shrug. “But my- my actual name is Bartholomew. At least, that’s one of them.”

“One of them?”

“My full name is Bartholomew Sildar Jean Bluejeans-Hallwinter.”

The names felt strange coming out of his mouth. He hadn’t addressed himself as so in quite some time. Not many moments called for it, yet something about this one-

Her eyebrows shot up to her hairline. “That’s quite a name you got there.”

“Y-yeah.”

“Anyone else know that?”

“Captain Davenport.”

She laughed. “Which basically means nothing. He doesn’t seem like the type to fuck with people.” She turned back to face him, sticking her hands on her hips. “But you good with Barold? Or just Bluejeans?”

“I mean- yeah, that’s fine. Just… many people don’t call me by my full name and-”

“Then it’ll be our little secret,” she said, winking. “It’s pretty rad that I already know something that four of us don’t.” She then gave him a two-finger salute before taking a step back and a quick look over her shoulder. “So, Barold Bluejeans, it’s been real, but I gotta find-”

“You’re Lup, right?”

Lup paused for just a moment, looking back at him, before that grin was back on her face. “The one and only.”

“I- I just asked because I didn’t get to meet you two and-”

“Hey! Lup! There you are, dingus!” A third voice suddenly called down and Lup, with a smirk, spun to face it. Looking around her, Barry saw who he presumed to be Taako waving from the end of the hall. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!”

“Well, I’ve been looking everywhere for _you,_ goofus!”

“Well, not hard enough!”

“You couldn’t find me either!” And then the twins laughed and, even if it was such an apparently-mundane moment, Barry felt like he was watching something incredible. Lup then looked over her shoulder, back at Barry, before turning to her brother again. “Hey, Ko, you met Barold yet?”

“Bluejeans?”

“Yeah.”

“Nope.”

“Well-” Lup jutted her thumb at him “-Here he is.”

“That’s chill.”

(And, in the midst of meeting Lup, that was how Barry met Taako.)

“Well,” Lup said, casting one last look at Barry. “I’ll see you around, Barold.”

“Okay,” was all Barry could say as he watched Lup go back down the hall and, linking arms with Taako, walk off with their heads tucked close.

* * *

 

Barry loved the world he grew up on and, with horror, Barry realized that he would never set foot on that world again.

The seven IPRE members, all with wide eyes and gaping mouths, watched from the deck of the Starblaster—flying higher and higher up above their greying world—as black tendrils shot down and grabbed their world, their _home,_ only hesitating for a second—just long enough for them to think that perhaps they were imagining things—before consuming their plane of existence into its own mass of shimmering blackness.

In that moment, Barry knew two things, whether he liked it or not: One, there was no coming back, and, two, no one would be left even if he could.

“Davenport,” Magnus shouted, perhaps because he was the only person who could find their voice, “What the hell’s happening?”

“I- I don’t know!” Davenport, from his place at the wheel, shouted back. He sounded panicked and, in a split second, violently steered the ship away from a black tendril that shot at them. “I- I don’t know what this is!”

The six of them at the railing shared an identical, terrified look. Down the line, Merle was clutching the iron bars of the Starblaster’s railing, only just able to see over the top. Lucretia held tight to the railing as well, looking as if her legs were about to buckle under her any second. Magnus was the only one not holding himself firm to the ship and, instead, his hands hovered behind the people he stood next to, as if he was preparing himself to secure them if they were knocked off course. At the end, Taako and Lup both held the railing with one hand, and each other—tightly, the whites of their knuckles showing—with the other.

“What about at the Institute?” Barry shouted, finally finding the power to speak. “What’s- What’s going on there?”

“I don’t know!” Davenport shouted for a third time, the exasperation ringing loud in his voice. “There’s- there’s no signal! We can’t go back, we have to keep going!”

Barry didn’t get the chance to say anything else for, as he tried to think of explanations or commands or questions, he was torn apart and, somehow, put back together with strands of white light that twisted around all of them, strands that learned everything about them and caressed and stitched and _connected_ them.

And, then, they were flying back to the prime material plane. _A_ prime material plane? There was no darkness left chasing them, no worlds being attacked, but, instead, just unharmed planes continuing their peaceful orbit.

It didn’t take long for Barry to realize it, though: this wasn’t their home. The continents of the prime material plane weren’t in the right place, and the forestry of their own plane was no match for the lush landscapes he looked at now.

“Oh, my god,” he whispered, torn between fascination and a mental breakdown.

 _This_ was what they set out to do. It was in the goddamn name: The Institute of _Planar Research and Exploration._ They left their own world to find planes exactly like this one and more that Barry’s mind couldn’t even comprehend.

Yet, he couldn’t ignore the frantic static coming from Davenport’s radio, and his constant repetition of, “This is Captain Davenport of the Starblaster, set out on Mission Number One for the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration. We have experienced difficulties, but we have found ourselves on a new plane. Please report.”

Static.

“It’s so beautiful,” Lucretia whispered next to him, “But…”

(“Please report.” Static.)

“Yeah, sure, beautiful and all that,” Taako, his voice just as quiet, said down the line. “But what the fuck did we just witness?”

No one had an answer.

(“Captain Davenport coming in, please report.” Static.)

Magnus shifted, finally taking hold of the railing before leaning over the edge, trying to get a better look at what was below them. “Are they-” he swallowed thickly “-Is everyone back in our world… gone?”

A collective chill ran down the spine of the IPRE.

“They- they can’t be,” Merle attempted, forcing a grin on his face. “I mean, someone’s gotta be left, right?”

Collectively, the IPRE doubted.

“Well, I mean,” Lup started, looking down the line, “Do we… keep going? This is what we set out to do, but…”

“I think we have no other choice,” Davenport, able to hear their conversation over his unresponsive radio, called to them. “I- No one at the Institute is answering my calls.”

“Do we try turning back?” Barry finally asked, looking over his shoulder at their captain. “See if we can… get back to them?”

They tried, and nothing happened.

Davenport circled the planet exactly three times, the remaining six of them never finding it in them to move away from their place at the railing, before they were all able to deduce one thing: there were no people on this planet. For all they knew, they were the first people that this planet had ever seen.

“Alright, that’s it, I’m landing,” Davenport said after a couple hours. Barry’s legs ached, his fingers cramped from gripping on the railing, and he was starving, though none of that even crossed his mind before Davenport began his descend onto a somewhat-cleared field. “We… we have to figure out what we’re doing now.”

In the grand scheme of things, they all knew what they set out to do: explore new planes and bring back something tangible, something wonderful.

Except, for that plan, they expected to have something to return to, and constant access to the scientists left back at the Institute.

Regrouping in the Commons upon landing, Davenport sat at the head with the other six on either side of the long table and cast a look at each one of them.

“We have to keep going,” Davenport began. “We can’t turn back now and, frankly, I don’t know if we’ll even be able to. This world seems… uninhabited. Perhaps not the most wanted outcome but, nonetheless, something we were all prepared for. The seven of us knew getting onto the Starblaster that we will never know what we are walking into and… despite what we just witnessed, we have to keep going.”

Barry looked out one of the windows along the Starblaster’s siding and narrowed his eyes as something scurried past the ship, stopping only for a moment to peer back at him before continuing its journey.

It looked like… a mongoose?

Lup must have seen it too for, pointing at the same window, she said, “Well, it seems we’re not totally alone, if you count animals good company.”

And thus began what would be the first cycle, though they didn’t call them _cycles_ yet, of many.

* * *

 

It was cycle twenty-one, and Barry had known love before. He knew love when he stepped out of his childhood home and felt the rain against his skin. He knew love when he found a new book to devour within the night. He knew love when he thought of his mother, even decades after they left their home planet. He knew love when they landed upon a planet with people (and then, within the next minute, knew utter fear and dread because _oh God there are people_ ). He knew love when the seven remaining IPRE members collapsed into a pile on the couch because they were all too tired to make it back to their respective rooms and maybe, just maybe, they didn’t _want_ to go back.

But, in all of Barry’s thirty-eight years of life, and then his twenty-one years of being thirty-eight, he never thought he knew love like most people did. A love like how his mother loved his father. He loved, he had _so much love_ to give to the world and all that inhabited it, but the thought of complete devotion to another person, the art of two racing hearts and the songs they beat together, it was never something Barry thought he would have time for. He had a family to love and studies to dedicate his time to, and the world was so large, how was he supposed to find someone within it?

Love, in the sense that most people knew, was something that Barry had crossed off his list long before he was stuck in endless cycles of facing the apocalypse.

But, resting back on his elbows as the sun beat down on him, Barry watched as Lup, sprinting down the beach, her feet kicking up sand behind her, dived through the surf only to resurface, look up to the sky, and laugh.

Barry, with a start, realized that perhaps someone—in pretty, looping handwriting—had written that item back at the top of his list.

For thirty-eight years, Barry never thought he would have time for that kind of love; the kind that, while neither better nor worse than what he already knew, was undoubtedly different than any type of love he had ever experienced before.

A love that would make facing the apocalypse each year bearable, as long as she was by his side, wasn’t supposed to be something that Barry Bluejeans would ever have.

But, for twenty-one years of being thirty-eight, Barry had all the time in the world.

He should have realized what this was long ago. Lup had been there for him, after all, when he was struck with a sudden, inescapable grief for the life he left behind sixteen cycles in. For the mother he was supposed to come back to, but who wouldn’t be there for him if he ever did. Lup was there in the doorway to the darkness of his room and, for just a moment, they shared a tearful look, before she was moving to his side. Her hands had been soft, burning with magic, when they held his own and, softly, as if not to disturb the darkness resting around them, she said, _“What do you need me to do, Barry?”_

So rarely had she ever called him _Barry._ It was always Barold or Bluejeans, and Barry had become so accustomed to it that those had become Lup’s specific nicknames for him. To hear the softness in her voice, the kindness and the care, Barry should have known then that he was done for.

It had been Taako that made him realize that he had time, something that most lovers rarely had, and that was the moment when Barry knew what love, what _that_ kind of love, felt like. He finally understood his heart beating fast in his chest, and why Lup was always the first person he looked for when the cycle reset. He finally understood what it meant to look at someone and want to know every single part of her, from the good, to the bad, to the late nights spent when neither of them could find it within them to do anything but talk.

He finally understood that to be in love with Lup was a beautiful thing.

And, quietly, he released a contented breath as Lup, spinning to face him from all the way off the coast, grinned and waved wildly at him. “Hey, Barold!”

He finally understood that he was made of love, _defined_ by love, and he wanted nothing more than to share it with the world.

He smiled and waved back. “Hey, Lup!”

He wanted nothing more than to share it with Lup.

A shadow casted over him and, looking up, he saw Taako, arms crossed, smirking down at him. The beach had treated him kindly, giving him a vitality that Barry hadn’t seen before.

“Bar-ry,” Taako said, his voice a sing-song.

“Taa-ko,” Barry said, mimicking the tone but his definitely a lot more nervous.

Taako cocked his head. His ears twitched and that smirk on his face only grew. “She likes red things. Was near insufferable with these dumb red robes. Blue’s more of my thing, but cha’boy’s not complaining. She likes rings, and isn’t really that much of a necklace girl, but earrings are her favorite. Her favorite time of day is when it’s so dark out that you feel like you’re about to be swallowed by the universe, but the stars have to be endless.”

Barry blinked up at Taako and, for a split second, wondered why Taako was telling him things he already knew. He remembered Lup, before the IPRE Press Conference, swishing the ends of her red robe and laughing, and he remembered the red nail polish she unearthed from the bottom of her bag amidst the first cycle with a cheer on how she _knew_ she had packed it. He remembered the rings she had collected, and some even made, throughout the years, and how, at the beginning and end of each one, she counted each earring to make sure she had all of them. And, most of all, he remembered sitting out with her on the deck of the Starblaster for nightwatch just the week prior and—in the darkness when the stars were infinite and, perhaps, so were they—she turned to him and said, _“If this was the only thing I saw for the rest of my life, I think I’d be okay with that.”_

But then, Barry realized that perhaps that was the point: he _knew._

“I know.”

Taako’s smile suddenly softened, a sincerity behind it that Barry had yet to see before. “I thought so.”

* * *

 

Barry’s heart was racing but, following Lup up the hill and away from the stage, leaving the crowd behind them before anyone got the chance to realize that they left, he knew it wasn’t because of the performance they just put on.

Or, perhaps, maybe it was, but not for the reason that every other anxious performer would have expected.

Instead, it was because Lup was holding his hand, and she wasn’t letting go, nor did he ever want her to. If he could stay like this forever: watching her lead him forward, looking back only to give him a glowing grin, her cheeks flushed and the sun embracing her frame like a halo... Barry would remain a very, very happy man.

They kept going forward, their feet hitting the ground faster as they grew eager and impatient, and Lup laughed and Barry did, too, and, for the first time in decades, Barry felt like a kid.

It wasn’t until they hit an empty classroom that their feet skidded to a halt and, for just a moment, all Barry could hear was their panting breaths. Then, looking at Lup, Barry took in her wind blown hair, her flushed face, and how one of the straps of her dress had fallen off her shoulder.

And Barry, grinning and shaking his head, said, “You are so beautiful.”

And Lup, grinning back at him and adjusting the strap of her dress, said, “You’re not too bad yourself, Barold.”

And, then, Lup’s lips were on his own, and Barry’s mind had only a second to process that this was _finally_ happening before he, near instinctively, wrapped his arms around her waist. She tangled her hands in his hair, instantly messing up the look he had put on for their performance, and Barry didn’t care at all. He rathered this, an empty classroom with Lup, than any prying eyes from onlookers.

Of course he would have rathered this. For decades now, he danced around saying what he felt because, well, how could he say it? For so long, the two of them had sat through lunches disguised as lab work, have travelled across worlds together under the guise of researching the Light, and neither thought to say something to the person standing only a few feet away from them.

Barry was done being quiet.

“I love you,” Barry was saying, pulling away, his arms still secure around Lup, “And I have loved you for such a long time, Lup.”

Lup, for just a moment, stared at him, her eyes wide, and Barry thought he could see the stars in them. And then the moment passed and she grinned and said back to him, “Barry J. Bluejeans, I am madly in love with you.”

“And I don’t- I don’t want to waste any more time,” Barry said, letting out a sheepish laugh. “Even, uh, when we have all the time in the world… I don’t want to lose any more time that I could be spending with you.”

Lup’s smile softened and, gently, she cupped Barry’s face in her hands. Her thumbs traced his jaw and, cocking her head ever so slightly, she whispered, “I don’t want to, either.”

And then, Barry kissed her again and, for just a moment, it felt like the apocalypse was nothing compared to them.

* * *

 

It was cycle sixty-six, and Barry was tired. Lup was tired, the entire fucking IPRE was tired, and the exhaustion Lucretia felt was all of theirs tenfold.

Barry was so, so tired and yet, looking up at the glowing stick-on stars on his ceiling (that, funnily enough, Lup had helped him make and put up before the end of their first year), Barry wasn’t even close to falling asleep.

Him, Magnus, and Davenport almost died that day. Death itself was no longer a problem. Yes, it fucking sucked, but they always came back. In the first couple cycles, they would all wait with baited breath for the fallen to return but, over half a century in, they knew that whoever died would be back. It never made the deaths easier, but it added a layer of reassurance.

Reassurance or not, though, it was difficult to bounce back from almost losing three people in one go within the first month of a new cycle.

In the darkness, Barry almost laughed, and it would have been pathetic and cynical. Lucretia lost the six of them within a day, but that was long past unnerving; that was a living nightmare, a scenario with little chance of escaping to the next cycle.

Barry let out a sigh, and it was more shaky than he would’ve liked to admit.

“Babe?”

Barry looked to his right and saw Lup staring back at him. It had taken a couple cycles, but he finally stopped getting scared at feeling a second presence in his room, or hearing a sudden voice next to him. She had her arm thrown over his bare stomach and the dim lights of his room just managed to catch her eyes.

“Oh, uh, hey, Lup,” Barry whispered. “Sorry, did I- did I wake you?”

Lup shook her head. “I wasn’t sleeping.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

Barry worried his bottom lip. “Are you… alright?”

Lup hugged him tighter and shifted so that she was resting her head on his chest, her ear over where his heart was. “Are you?”

Barry swallowed thickly and looked back up at the ceiling. “Not really.”

Lup traced gentle circles on his chest. “Maybe you should… stay back tomorrow. Ko and I are on watch, we could...”

Barry sighed and shook his head. “We have to go back out tomorrow. The Light is somewhere out there, and maybe we can finally find that village we’ve been hearing about.”

“You mean go back out and and almost die again tomorrow? Maybe get into another fight that outnumbers you seven to three, or get poisoned by those fucked up plants?” The edge in her voice was hard to miss, and Barry tried to hold his frustration from his next words.

“Lup, we _have_ to, so-”

“Bullshit!” Lup interrupted, and her voice cut through the darkness. “You almost died today, you don’t have to do shit!”

Barry was tired, and the clock on his bedside table just kept ticking, and he really didn’t feel like having this conversation right now. “Lup,” he repeated, keeping his eyes up on his ceiling, “This is our job. Yeah, it’s really fucking rough that we’re susceptible to whatever comes at us, but this is our _job,_ and I- I’d be back in a couple months, anyway, and-”

“Stop!” She interrupted again. “Shut up! Stop trying to reason with your own death!”

“But it’s what could happen!” Barry didn’t intend for his voice to have an intensity to it, but he still heard it loud and clear. “We can’t- we don’t just give up when things get hard! Yeah, three of us almost died today, and it sucked, and tomorrow we might die, probably will, which also sucks, but it’s what we set out to do! This mission-” He huffed and shook his head. “This mission has nearly a hundred-percent fatality rate, so it makes _no sense_ to just sit back and do _shit_ because some of us almost died after a- a really hard cycle!”

Lup was silent and, already, Barry felt like shit for getting angry with her, and, when he felt something wet drip onto his chest and heard Lup’s breathing hitch, he felt like a complete and total jackass _and also_ like his heart was being shattered into a billion pieces.

“Oh, Lup,” Barry murmured, the guilt he was feeling making his own throat tighten as he rubbed her back, “Honey, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you, I-”

“It’s not that, Barry!” Lup shoved herself up and roughly rubbed at her cheeks, though Barry had a feeling it wasn’t doing much. “You’re frustrated, okay? I get that! So much fucking shit is going on and- and I get it! But- but I-” And, then, breaking Barry’s heart even more, Lup broke into an indecipherable mess of sobs as she shook her head, pressing the palms of her hands into her eyes.

Barry, in just a second, was sitting up and collecting Lup into his arms. He held her close, naturally rocking her back and forth as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. “Lup,” he whispered, rubbing gentle circles on her back, “It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m sorry- _so sorry._ Can you just breathe for me? We can talk, okay? I just need you to breathe.”

Lup, albeit very shakily, sucked in breaths between her tears as she threw her arms around Barry. He kept her close to him, running a hand through her hair, and, after some coaching, Lup was finally able to take a steady breath.

She murmured something into his neck.

Barry furrowed his eyebrows. “What, love?”

Lup picked her head up and looked at Barry. Even in the darkness, Barry could see the puffiness of her face and the shine of her tears as a couple still rolled down her cheeks. “I hate thinking that each moment with you is going to be my last.”

Barry’s heart twinged and pulled in his chest. “Lup, I-”

“I get that we die,” she continued and sucked in another trembling breath. “We’ve all died before. I get it, okay? But…” She threw a glance up to the artificial cosmos above them before coming back down. “I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to see you walk off the Starblaster and wonder if I won’t see you again for months, okay? I- I don’t-” Her voice broke again and she scrunched up her face, whipping her head away from him.

Barry, gently, carefully, tilted her chin up and wiped the falling tears off her cheeks before pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“I don’t want to just expect you to disappear one day,” Lup whispered. Barry assumed it was all her voice would allow her. “I’m done being forced to accept it, too.”

Death was no longer a problem. How could it be, when you would just be back within the year? In the wild lives they lived, so few things were ever permanent. Aside from the seven of them, everything that they knew and everyone that they met would be gone within the year, either consumed or left behind.

Death itself, the art of dying, was no longer a problem. Sometimes it was bold and daring, like when those of them who were left behind—the Starblaster shooting into the twinkling black abyss—realized that, in mere moments, they would be stitched back together, so why not throw themselves into the feast of the Hunger? Sometimes it was as tragic as actual death, the _permanent_ kind, like the first time Taako died (an accident, early on in the cycles, too soon for any of them to be acquainted with the idea of dying) and Lup merely becoming a vessel for a distraught soul split into two damaged halves.

Sometimes, death was as mundane as most deaths were. Sometimes, death was being backed against a cliff with Magnus at his side and, turning to give him a lopsided grin, saying, _“We’ll get ‘em next time,”_ before the Hunger tore into him.

Death was no longer a problem when, in a year, they would all be back together.

That didn’t mean that the week, the month, the year without someone wasn’t a problem.

Barry swallowed thickly.

Sometimes, they were careless with their deaths. The act of living and dying and living again became so ingrained in their routine that, sometimes, it just happened, and that was that.

Barry was done living (and dying) like that.

Taking a deep breath, he tightened his arms around Lup, and she hugged him tighter, too.

“You won’t have to,” he whispered. “Not anymore. I’m- I’m done dying when there’s other worlds to see. I’m done dying and missing chances to live with you.”

“You’re such a sap,” Lup mumbled into his neck. “I love you.”

Barry smiled.

“I love you, too, Lup.”

Though it would not be said for every cycle, for life was never that easy, Barry kept his promise as best as he could and lived to see the end of that cycle.

* * *

 

Though all cycles came to brutal ends, some worse than others, some days within these grueling cycles were plain. Not every day was spent wading through rivers to find the Light, or reaching out to the natives of the planet in hopes of gaining even a fraction of their trust, and, without a doubt, not every day was the end of the world.

Most days were unremarkable and only lead into quiet nights.

This was one of those nights.

The clock on Lup’s bedside table said that it was twenty to midnight. Her room wasn’t necessarily neater or messier than Barry’s but, instead, her room was so _Lup._ Her robes hung on doors and the backs of chairs. Her jewelry rested carefully on hooks and her makeup lay scattered across her desk. Red lanterns, made decades ago, hung from her ceiling and still burned brightly even after all these years, though Barry guessed that that was the magic of them.

Her room glowed like the sunset did.

In the midst of her own brand of messiness, Barry could see hints of her brother poking through, such as the blue pointed hat that Barry saw shoved up in the top of Lup’s closet. She took it from Taako the same cycle he found it in (it was so long ago, but Barry believed it must have been their ninth or tenth) and claimed that it was the dumbest thing she had ever seen. Taako, in retaliation, took a shirt from her closet and transmuted it into another hat. It was the one he wore most and, whether or not he did it to torture his sister or keep a part of her with him at all times, he never said.

There were hints of everyone in Lup’s room. Barry knew for a fact that he has left notes, books, and jeans in Lup’s room before (for varying reasons). When one of Davenport’s compasses broke, Lup took it for herself and kept it secured on a shelf. No matter which way they turned, it never stopped pointing north. Lup and Lucretia shared a diary that they swapped every cycle; Barry never tried to pry into what the two of them were saying but, from how he could hear Lup laugh as she read it, he assumed the two of them were writing something good. As Barry counted now, he noted six wooden ducks of varying quality nesting around her room, though each one had an _L_ and a smiley face carved on the left wing. A flowerpot sat on Lup’s side table, messily painted with flowers and sparks and _M & L, 27 _ written on the side. Each year, Lup planted something new in it and, this cycle, a glowing blue cactus (or at least what Barry thought _looked_ like a cactus, though it needed to be watered more than an average plant in general, and normal cacti didn’t flower light every few days) sat proudly in it.

Lup was sitting across from him; he had made himself comfortable up against the headboard of her bed and, on the other end, she was concentrating hard, her tongue sticking out just enough, as she meticulously painted her fingernails. It was the same red polish from the first cycle, and even Barry was honest to admit that he had been shocked when it regenerated with them as if she had never even opened it.

 _“I think it’s probably enchanted,”_ Lup had said when he asked. _“I bought it from some woman on the side of the road years before I even applied to the IPRE.”_

It was a night like this when Barry, looking up at his girlfriend, said, “You’re so cute like that.”

Lup narrowed her eyes, though Barry saw her cheeks flush and the corners of her mouth turn up. “Shut it, Barold, I’m concentrating.”

Barry smirked, leaning forward so that his elbows were resting on his knees. “Such a romantic.”

 _“Such a romantic,”_ Lup mocked, though looked up at him and shot a grin. “Look at you, being all gross and sappy and _yuck.”_

“I know,” Barry laughed. “It’s disgusting.”

“Totally,” Lup said and, sticking out her tongue one final time, finished painting her thumb. “And there!” She showed off her hands with a flourish and Barry nodded approvingly.

“Impressive,” he said, grinning. “And red again? Never would have expected it.”

Lup scrunched up her face and flipped him off. “You’re so funny, Barold. Science officer Barry Bluejeans? I don’t know him, only Resident Comedian Barold.”

Barry winked. “I’ll be here all year. And next year, too. And, like, all of them.”

Lup rolled her eyes, though even she couldn’t hide her grin. “You’re the worst.”

“Right back at you, babe.”

“Oh, fuck you, I’m the greatest person here,” Lup said, waving her hands about to dry the polish faster.

Barry shrugged, leaning back on the bed. “I don’t know, Lup, Taako’s pretty cool, too.”

Lup glared at him. “If you want to leave me for my brother, _fine,_ be my _guest,”_ she teased, poking him with her foot. “He’s way picker than me, though, so good fucking luck!”

“I can’t do that,” he said, shaking his head. “I need someone with low standards.”

Lup leaned her head back and laughed, and Barry felt his heart swell. “You’re the worst!” she exclaimed. “Barry Bluejeans, I have spent thirty years with you—this is our fucking _anniversary cycle_ —and everything is going to shit right now!”

Barry smirked. “Well, now I guess you’re stuck with me.”

Lup dramatically sighed. “Well, if I _have_ to be,” she said and, crawling over to him on her knees (still waving her hands slightly), she leaned down and kissed him gently.

They broke apart, their faces only inches away from each other and, his face flushing like it did all those years before and a stupid grin on his face, he whispered, “I love you. My mother would have, too.”

Barry had told Lup about his mother before. If he tested her, she could probably recite his life right back to him. She had helped him cope with the world they lost, and the people on it, and perhaps that was what started it all.

Lup, looking down at him, smiled back. “I would’ve loved to meet her, too.”

“She would’ve loved everything about you,” Barry continued. “You’re- _god,_ Lup, you’re so kind and so beautiful—in- in more ways than one—and, shit, I’ve already said stuff like this before but-” He laughed and Lup did, too “-but she always told me to go out and do something and- and I was always so terrified to but... thank god I did, because I found _you_ and-” He swallowed thickly “-and she would have loved you so much.”

Lup blinked down at him, and blinked again, and it took Barry a moment to notice the collecting tears, and then she started laughing and rubbing her eyes with the heels of her hand, shaking her head. She pressed one more kiss to his lips, and then one more, and one more, and Barry beamed and cupped her face, resting his forehead against her own.

Lup’s eyes, shining and full of the world, met Barry’s.

“Bartholomew Sildar Jean Bluejeans-Hallwinter,” she said, and it was slow and quiet and gentle and made Barry’s heart soar. It sounded like a confession and a proposal and a moment in the universe that might never be recreated. It made Barry realize that he had died so many times, yet loving Lup felt like living a thousand lives. “I love you so much, with my whole heart and so much more.”

Barry swallowed thickly, and then again, and took Lup’s hands in his own, carefully as to not ruin her hard work, and squeezed them tightly.

* * *

 

It was purely coincidental and hysterical bad luck that the first cycle after Barry and Lup became liches was the one they died within the first week in.

“You two have got to be fucking _kidding_ me!” Taako was shouting at the two of them. All seven of them had been at the Starblaster’s dinner table for ten minutes and, while Taako took all that time to berate them for their untimely first-deaths, the four remaining not-liches (who had just found out about the whole lich thing) sat between the three of them (Lup and Barry at one end, Taako at the other) and stared with mouths agape.

 _“Taako,”_ Lup’s voice, annoyed, came from her spectral form.

“Don’t fucking _Taako_ me!” Taako continued, throwing his hands up. Barry held back a laugh. It wasn’t like Taako got like _this_ often. “Are you two seriously fucking telling me that _this_ is how this cycle is going to go? We’ve been here for five days! Five fucking days! And you two chucklefucks already lost your fucking actual bodies! You can’t just _grow_ another body! I don’t know how fucking necromancy works but I didn’t haul ass to some empty field in the middle of nowhere to watch that spooky fucking lich ritual only for you two to beef it immediately!”

“Well-” Barry started but Taako jutted a finger at him.

“Shut it, Bluejeans!” Taako snapped and Barry actually let a laugh escape, which only worsened Taako’s glare. “And this wasn’t even some fucking heroic death! No, no, instead, you two were just like, ‘hey! found some random berries! time for a nice snack!’ You two are scientists! Science one-oh-fucking-one is ‘do not eat random things you find!’ But what do you two do? Fucking poison yourselves! What is _wrong_ with the two of you? And- _Lucretia, are you seriously writing all of this down?”_

All heads snapped to Lucretia, whose hands stilled from writing in her notebooks. She looked up to Taako, and then to Barry and Lup, and then back to Taako. “If I’m being honest,” she said, completely straight-faced, “This is really good stuff.”

Lup, next to him, burst out laughing and Barry nodded and said, pointing a skeletal finger at Lucretia, “See, Taako, ‘Cretia gets it! Now, Lucretia, hear me out, alright? In big letters, write _necromancy is cool_.”

“I’m- I’m not writing that-”

“Yeah, ‘Creesh, tell ‘em!” Magnus, who Barry noted had taken the farthest seat from him and Lup, laughed. “Let everyone know that necromancy is for chumps or- no, wait! Write that liches get stitches!”

“I’m not writing that either!”

“I mean-” Merle leaned over to look at what Lucretia was writing. Taako looked like his head was about to explode. “-You _could_ take a stance on what you think of necromancy.”

“I don’t think I have an opinion?”

“It’s chill as hell!” Lup exclaimed. “We have fucking two lives! That’s one more than all of you suckers!”

“Hey! You’re talking to the man that has died fifty times for your sorry asses!”

“Well, maybe you should try harder at parlaying with the literal personification of death and destruction!”

“Lucretia, write about how Merle and Lup became sworn enemies-”

“Oh, my god!” Davenport, who had finally found his voice within the chaos, shouted, rubbing his temples. “Can all of you shut up for maybe thirty seconds?”

“See!” Taako exclaimed, pointing at Davenport. “Even fucking Cap’nport’s pissed!”

Davenport then shot Taako a murderous look and, quickly, Taako sat back down in his seat.

For once, the table of seven was completely silent.

Finally, Davenport turned to face Barry and Lup.

“So,” he said as calmly as he could muster. “You two. Are dead.”

“Actually,” Lup said, leaning forward. Barry could hear the grin in her voice. “We’re _un_ dead.”

“So… almost alive?” Davenport asked, nodding slowly.

Barry shook his head. “Oh, no. We’re, like, super dead, but not _dead-_ dead.”

Davenport—the man who knew Barry the longest, the one who knew him as the professional and slightly nervous Dr. Bluejeans—blinked at him. “What?”

“Think of it as a second life,” Barry explained.

“Yeah, if we kick it, you’re all still stuck with us,” Lup added on. “Which is great for you guys since, you know, we’re pretty kick ass.”

Lup couldn’t wink in her spectral form, but Barry knew that she would if she could.

“Okay, yeah, sure,” Davenport said, shaking his head and letting his eyes fall shut as, pinching the bridge of his nose, he took a moment to compose himself. “So this is a… good thing?”

“Very,” Lup said.

“It took some… dark magic,” Barry admitted. “But, overall, it gives us another way to keep fighting the Hunger. All joking aside, this is just another way to bolster our ranks against this thing. We’re not bragging but… our power as liches is practically doubled. We are raw magical energy and- and that can help a lot.”

Lup nodded and, though she looked out at the whole table, Barry had a feeling her eyes were falling mostly on Taako. “Exactly,” she said. “Even though we might look a bit… spooky for a while-”

“Tell me about it,” Magnus mumbled.

“-We’re still us,” Lup continued. “We’re still Barry and Lup and we’ll be back when this year is over.” She then tilted her head and Taako smiled slightly. “Besides, at least you guys know that you can’t actually lose us now.”

“Well, yeah, good to know,” Taako said. “Uh, sorry for freaking out on you guys, I guess?”

Barry shook his head. “No, we deserved it,” he said. “We got a bit too cocky about, uh, not being able to _actually die_ anymore.”

“The worst part?” Lup added. “They weren’t even good berries. Didn’t even beef it for a good cause.”

“Jotting that down,” Lucretia murmured.

“Oh, that’ll be good for whoever reads this,” Magnus beamed.

“It makes us humble,” Merle smirked. “One day, we talk to something that wants to literally consume the entire fucking universe. The next day, one of us keels over after having a bad lunch.”

“It makes me wish I chose different crewmates,” Davenport mumbled, his face in his hands, and, as the rest of them laughed, Barry noted the small smile peeking out of their captain.

It was moments like this that Barry hoped to remember; that, after everything, wherever they ended up, Barry would look back on this and, in the midst of the apocalypse, find a reason to smile.

* * *

 

Barry decided in the ninety-second cycle that, when the time came, he would make a bell. He didn’t tell the others about it, not even Lup, because how could he? The bell itself was merely the vessel: it was simple and mundane, and the chime would serve its purpose of using the raw power inside of it.

The bell wasn’t what made it so difficult to talk about.

Lup’s item would be an accessory as fiery and powerful as she was. A silver gauntlet that, while providing no power on its own, could allow whoever commands it to know what it was like to have fire at the tips of their fingers.

“You always hear about enchanted swords and daggers and staves,” Lup had explained, showing Barry a drawing with _Phoenix Fire Gauntlet_ written messily beneath it. “But what about armor? Protective _and_ powerful.”

Davenport’s would be simple: an eyepiece that, to the untrained eye, wouldn’t even register as magical. Perhaps that was the irony of his Oculus: a mundane thing that could exceed the limits of the imagination.

“Think about it, Barry,” Davenport had said to him one early morning over coffee. “Think of how much easier it would be to repair a ship if you could just have the parts, or the benefits of having a defending army as long as you just… _will_ it there.”

When Merle told Barry about what he had planned, he thought the dwarf was joking, but perhaps that was because Merle initially told him, _“Oh, yeah, I’m just making a belt.”_

“A… belt?” Barry had asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, a belt,” Merle told him one rainy afternoon, shrugging. “Or, I guess it’s more of a sash? The _Gaia_ Sash, actually, and, listen, it’s this fucking rainy planet that got me thinking on it. We go to these places destroyed by droughts or floods or whatever-the-fuck have you, but what if that could be changed? Maybe it’s the Pantheist in me, but I just think that having rushing rivers and flourishing trees when you need them is pretty fucking handy.”

Taako, a man who lived for so long with almost nothing, found a way to have anything he could ever want and more. All it would take was a small stone, unimpressive to most, that could somehow bring the world to them at the mere touch of their fingertips.

“Think of it as a Philosopher’s Stone, Barold,” Taako had said during their nightshift. “Copper can become gold, rocks to jewels. Fuck, _anything_ to food. Not to get all deep and stuff, and don’t go telling the other chucklefucks about this, but this is shit that me and Lu could’ve used… our entire lives.”

Magnus’ was perhaps the most surprising of them all. Being the only one of their crew who had no hold on magic, Barry admitted that he was curious to see what Magnus would do with raw magical energy. Of all things, though, the ability to manipulate time was… unexpected.

“Because… I don’t know, don’t you wish that some things could’ve been different?” Magnus explained, quietly, as he and Barry looked into Fisher’s glowing tank. “I mean, what if you could go back and change something, knowing what you know now? The battles you could stop or the people you could save… If I could go back to that first cycle, knowing what I do now? I think I’d consider it.”

Lucretia didn’t talk about what she would make.

“I have the plan for my item, Barry,” she had said to him when he finally caved and asked her. She went silent after that, looking down at the Starblaster’s table where her pointer finger was drawing circles. She looked tired and nervous, like maybe she had been avoiding this conversation, too, and, then, she looked up at Barry. “I’m- I’m not mad. Not at any of you. You’re all my family. I just… don’t want to talk about it.”

What made it so difficult for Barry to talk about his bell _—The Animus Bell,_ he decided one lonely night—was that it had no goodness in it. It was another chance at life for those who didn’t wish to fall victim to the taboos of rituals and necromancy, but the only way to gain a second life without risking your own was to take it from someone else.

It wasn’t made yet, and he didn’t know when it would be. This cycle was already done for; the Hunger found them months before they were even able to locate the Light. But what if it was the next one? Or a cycle ten years from now?

What if they just had to wait another century, and all Barry would have to think about is the weight on his shoulders of what he could make?

Lucretia’s plan, no matter how hard she tried or the spells she could make, wouldn’t work. To cut off a planet was to kill it and, no matter the intentions or how much he appreciated her dedication to her own type of science, Barry was finished watching worlds be killed.

The plan they decided on was messy. It relied on the greed in people’s hearts to conquer and take and take and take. No matter what the seven of them had planned for these items, once they were out in an unassuming world, they were no longer their own. They were at the mercy of the world, the mercy of humanity, and, looking at the odds, Dr. Barry J. Bluejeans, Head Science Officer of the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration and esteemed professor for one of the most prestigious Academies, had to shove aside statistics and data and just… hope.

Hope, and remind himself that, in making these items, they could put an end to the apocalypse once and for all.

* * *

 

It was the hundredth year and, to mark surviving an unbelievable century-long journey, the Light graced the deck of the Starblaster the day they landed.

It took a day, a day of diligent work and ethereal sweet-talking voices, but it was all the travelers of the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration needed; successfully they separated the Light into seven equal parts, blessing once mundane objects with power that few could fathom.

“Well, gang, this is it,” Davenport said, clutching the Oculus tightly in his hands. It was golder than Barry expected it to be, and shone brighter with the Light than any of them thought it would. “Now we just… see if it works.”

“It’s going to work,” Lup assured, inspecting her gauntlet. She bent the pointer finger at the knuckle, and arched an eyebrow when a spark, barely enough to light a match, ignited at the end. She then looked up to Barry’s right, where Lucretia was standing and looking right back at her. “It will.”

Barry watched as Lucretia, holding her white-oak Bulwark staff against her chest, her fingers gripping so tightly that they could make their own grooves, stayed silent but flicked her eyes to Magnus. Magnus didn’t see and, instead, stared into his Temporal Chalice.

“It’s going to work,” Barry repeated. “And if it doesn’t… we try again.”

“How?” Lucretia asked, looking at him. She looked tired and scared and, though she never aged past eighteen, Barry wondered if she still felt as young. “How will we start again, Barry?”

“We just… will,” Barry said weakly.

“Well, I’m sick of trying,” Merle, perhaps voicing what they all were thinking, said, though he still forced a grin. “We finally got somewhere that wouldn’t be absolute shit to be stuck on forever. I say we see how this goes and plant down some roots!” He then, valiantly, lifted the Gaia Sash, plant-like and woven, and winked.

Taako groaned and rolled his eyes. Out of the corner of Barry’s own eye, he saw a small smile pull up Lucretia’s lips.

“Listen, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m kinda… ready to get this over with?” Taako said, waving his Philosopher’s Stone, smooth and grey and simple. “This thing is… kinda spooky? Kinda ready to get it out of here?”

“And resourceful, Ko,” Lup added with a wink, and Taako smiled and one-shoulder shrugged.

“Then, I mean, how about we get going?” Magnus asked, finally looking up from his chalice. It was gold, too, and glistened with jewels fit for a regent, and clashed with Magnus’s battered armor and scarred hands. “If we need people to want these things, might as well get them out there?”

Barry looked down at his Animus Bell. Small and copper, with a wooden handle coming out the top and diamonds glistening around the base. He clutched it tightly and willed his hands not to shake. Even he was scared to find out what would happen if it accidentally rung.

Or, better yet, _who_ it would happen to.

“We need to,” Barry said. “This won’t work if people aren’t looking for these things.”

“So, are we all ready, then?” Davenport asked, looking around at his crew for the past century. “If this works, this is it. No more running.”

“Good,” Taako mumbled. “Fuckin’ sick of running.”

As six of them nodded along, Lucretia looked down at the woodwork of her staff.

Lup, catching this as well, repeated, softly, “This is going to work.”

Lucretia, looking up at Lup, held her gaze for a moment before sighing and saying, “Okay.”

And then, finally, the Starblaster began to descend onto the earth below them.

Perhaps the beauty of the situation—or the irony, depending on how one looked at it—was that this new world was so similar to their homeworld. Places that were familiar but left on the tips of tongues, people that they knew but couldn’t place how. In all senses of the word, it was home, yet they were foreigners in it.

Barry loved his old home, and loved the one he made with the IPRE.

Looking out the window of the Starblaster into the world below—casted under an ever-present shadow at the absence of a second sun and, perhaps, a shadow made by their ship as well—Barry could only hope that it would forgive them for what they were about to release into it and understand why they had to do it; he could only hope that it would hold itself together with the bonds of nature and nurture alike, and realize that this was going to be better than what ninety-nine other worlds perished to.

* * *

 

The Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, all with the agreement to return when they were finished, split off into the world to purposely lose what they had made.

Davenport, their Captain, left his in a shipyard, dropping it in the midst of luggage and goods and people rushing past too fast to take note of the voice that promised them anything their mind could imagine.

Arcanists and twins Lup and Taako went off together. The former somehow got her gauntlet on a flagpole with a shout of, _“Hey! That flagpole has a hand!”_ and the latter tossed his stone down a well and, as he walked away with a dismissive wave of his hand, said, _“Hey, there’s a cool rock down there, make sure you tell everyone you know about it.”_ They returned together, arms linked, just as they had left.

Their Biologist, Merle, draped his over a statue and came back with a shit-eating grin and a remark about how, if people really appreciated that piece of art, then they’d like the sash, too.

Barry left his in the depths of a cave within the Felicity Wilds and, though he never said it outloud, he doubted anyone would be able to survive the Wilds to even make it to the bell.

Magnus rushed out first and was the last to return. He stumbled back onto the deck of the Starblaster, too long after he left, exhausted and gripping onto the railing with a huge grin on his face and, as they swarmed their Security Officer, who they started to believe they had lost too soon, he said, _“You guys will never believe who I met while I was out there.”_

Lucretia didn’t tell anyone where she put her relic and, instead, came back onto the Starblaster and turned to her journals.

The Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, after leaving their items to the wills and wants of others, reported back to the Starblaster and waited, and waited, and waited for an apocalypse that never came.

* * *

 

The Phoenix Fire Gauntlet went first. None of them had been there to see it happen but, passing overhead, they couldn’t help but gape at the glassed over, black circle that took over a town none of them knew the name of. No survivors were left to bare witness but, as the gauntlet laid in wait on a raised and charred fist, an approaching army could be seen marching in the distance.

“That wasn’t where I left the gauntlet,” Lup whispered, pressing her hands to the window, as if she could reach out and touch the glass below.

Much in accordance to its twin, the Philosopher’s Stone was next. The city of Armos, thriving but humble, turned to peppermint within the hour of a little girl getting her hands on it. It sounded like something that should’ve been a part of a child’s game, but, landing to actually see the damage, something about looking into hard, frosted-over eyes was too gruesome for a child’s imagination.

Taako didn’t say anything and, with clenched fists that he shoved into his pockets, turned on his heel and stalked back onto the Starblaster.

The Oculus stayed hidden until three manticores and a five-headed dragon terrorized the eastern coast within a night. Hundreds of people killed and thousands displaced by the damage done as knights and generals and common folk alike all turned their weapons up to the flying beasts. The creatures fell by morning and the regent who willed them into existence, perhaps driven to madness by the cross between imagination and reality, laid himself to rest.

“At least those things could be killed,” Davenport, ever stoic, said, but the shake of his hands, quickly moving to clutch each other behind his back, wasn’t missed.

The Archipelago of Moonshae drowned in two minutes, hundreds and hundreds of hands reaching up to find no one there to pull them out. Though it was a region commonly affected by rough winds and rougher rains, it took no time at all to turn attention towards the Gaia Sash. Of what was left of the islands, all that could be recovered was the woven sash, hooked on the raised hand of the only statue left standing tall enough to peek through the water.

Merle, as the Starblaster flew low to look for any survivors, gripped the railing and whispered a prayer (or a rite or a plea or an apology) to his god as empty sky stretched above.

The Temporal Chalice made no known changes to the world they were still getting to know.

Magnus, for once, waited in contemplative worry.

The Animus Bell, in the midst of chaos and booming fights, made no noise.

Barry, for once, held back from losing himself in research.

The Bulwark Staff seemed forgotten among the others.

Lucretia, as always, wrote, and wrote, and wrote.

The natives of this world called what they had made “The Relics” and, thus, the chaos that sprung from them became “The Relic War.”

It was never meant to be a war.

They were meant to be scientists, adventurers, displaced people finally trying to find a home, not the ones pulling the trigger.

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans loved every single person he travelled those hundred years with. He loved Magnus’s charisma and Merle’s warmth, Lucretia’s ambition and Davenport’s resilience.

He loved Taako like a brother, and he loved Lup, and he loved the twins for letting him into their two-person family.

Among the seven of them, the twins had always been different. It was as if, somewhere far off, they had a world of their own that could never be consumed.

The twins had pink hair when their journey began a century ago. Lup’s was long and reached close to her waist in well-manicured curls. Taako’s went down to his shoulders, the same pink and the same curls, and was just long enough for him to be able to knot the front up on top of his head.

 _“Why the pink?”_ Magnus had once asked over dinner in an unrememberable cycle. _“Like, why both of you?”_

 _“Because we gotta make a statement,”_ Lup had said with a grin, cocking her head towards Taako.

 _“And after fighting about whether to make it blue or red,”_ Taako continued, tilting his head towards Lup, _“We realized we both looked fucking good in pink.”_

 _“But why both of you?”_ Magnus, ever curious, pushed. _“I mean, if one of you wanted red and the other wanted blue…”_

Lup and Taako shared a look before shrugging.

 _“We stick together,”_ Lup finally said. _“Always have, in life and in hair.”_

They didn’t age, and they didn’t grow, so, from the day they left their home planet to the day they landed on what was supposed to be their new home, the twins had pink hair with dark brown roots peeking out at the top.

And then, they began to age. They began to grow and, suddenly, the ends of their hair split and dark brown crept further and further down as the pink tried harder and harder to stick around.

Finally, on a mundane night just before a year into their settling, through a crack in the door to Lup and Lucretia’s shared restroom, Barry caught sight of the twins cutting off whatever pink remained. Lup cut hers to her shoulders, just longer than what Taako’s used to be, and, with a stoic face and hard-gripping knuckles, passed the scissors to her brother. Taking them, hollow eyes looking back at himself in the mirror, Taako cut his hair just up above his ears, shorter than Barry had ever seen it. He watched as the twins, surveying themselves and each other, ran hands through their newly-cut curls, a color they hadn’t been for so long, and that was when Barry finally stepped away, feeling as if he was intruding on something not made for him.

“Because we can’t be caught dead wearing a style we wore a century ago,” Lup had answered with a too-wide grin when Barry asked her about it the next day. “Especially when we’re finally sticking around long enough for people to notice.”

“Because we can’t hold on to the people we were a hundred years ago,” Taako had said  when Barry brought it up that same night. Detachment and exhaustion hung on his every word. “They haven’t existed for a long time.”

Taako had always been the pragmatist, the one to see how things were with no pretty and colorful lenses, and Lup was the optimist, the one who saw how things could be if they tried hard enough, and, somehow, they both broke Barry’s heart that day.

* * *

 

Barry had been in his room, pouring over notes and maps and _where the fuck is it now-_ when there was a quiet knock on his door and a soft, “Barry?”

His head shot up and, after staring at his door for a moment, he said, “You know you don’t have to knock, babe.”

The door opened slowly, just a crack, and in popped Lup’s head. “I-I know,” she said, and she forced a smile on her face. Her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, and they darted around his room, as if making a note of everything in it, before landing on him. “Sorry, I just…”

She never meant for the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet to be able to do what it did that night.

“You okay?” Barry asked, shifting his papers off of him. If he could just stand up, if he could just take Lup into his arms, maybe she would feel better, maybe this would all be-

“Don’t,” Lup said, putting her hand out as her voice shook. Barry stopped mid-movement. “I-I’m not going to be long. I just- came to say goodnight. I’m staying in my own room.”

Barry frowned. “Are you sure? You know you can stay here.”

Lup nodded, quickly, and swallowed thickly. “I know, babe, I know,” she assured. Another wavering smile. “I just… need some time to myself, you know?” Barry nodded, slowly, and Lup took a deep breath. “It won’t be permanent.”

“I know,” Barry said, nodding again. Though it wasn’t common anymore, sometimes they did prefer the comfort of their own beds.

Lup nodded and looked around again. She worried her bottom lip, taking another look at him. “Hey, Barry?”

“Yeah, Lup?”

Then, Lup finally pushed the door open all the way and crossed into his room. Effortlessly, gracefully, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to his lips.

“I love you,” she whispered. “Barry Bluejeans and Barold and Bartholomew and Jean and Sildar and every name you have, I love you so fucking much.”

Her words and hands trembled and, gently, he covered hers with his own. She still shook beneath him and, tucking her head down to her chest, she sucked in a ragged breath.

“Hey, _hey,”_ he said softly, squeezing her hands. “Lup, it’s- it’s going to be okay. You- you didn’t mean-”

 _“Don’t,”_ Lup cut in, shaking her head adamantly. She lifted her head and took her hands from his, scrubbing them across her tear-stricken face. She put another smile on her face and looked down at Barry. “I’m okay.”

Barry didn’t believe her.

“Lup, are you sure you don’t want to stay with… someone? I’m sure Taako or-”

She shook her head again and, this time, cut him off by caressing his face. “I’m okay,” she whispered again, locking eyes with him. They still shone, and Barry thought that maybe his did, too. “It’s just been a long night. I have a lot on my mind and… I just need to sort it out on my own, okay?”

Barry, frowning, nodded. “O-Okay,” he said. “But you know I’m always here for you, right?”

She smiled down at him and, for the first time that night, it looked like a real one. “I love you.”

Barry smiled, too. “I love you, too, Lup.”

Lup then took a step backwards from him, and then another, and then, when she turned and reached his door, her hand on the knob, she cast him one final look over her shoulder.

“See you, Barry.”

Barry smiled at her.

“Goodnight, Lup.”

And then, never taking his eyes off her, Barry watched Lup step out and close the door behind her.

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans knew love. He knew love so well that it consumed him, defined him, _was_ him. He knew love that made his heart sing and his thoughts soar to heights greater than the eye could ever see. He knew passionate love and quiet love and love that lasted decades longer than the average human got. He knew love that powered battles, powered ships.

He knew love like he knew a heart breaking. He knew departing love and fleeting love. He knew love for things that perhaps were never his to have, at least not for forever. He knew love like he knew a fatal wound, like sixty years suddenly falling out beneath him. He knew love like he knew destroyed cities and circles of black glass. He knew love like he knew a look over a shoulder and a door shutting tight.

He knew love and, for the first time, he thought it might be what finally killed him for good.

_Back soon,_

_L_

Sealed with a final kiss.

* * *

 

Barry didn’t know the man that killed him but, as his back hit the railing of a ship that he didn’t know why he was on, he knew he was grateful of this elf for doing so, and that he looked so heartbreakingly familiar.

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans was dead before he hit the ground.

Barry Bluejeans, a lich, rose up for his second life as, looking up at the bright blue sky, he watched the Starblaster trek on without him. Without any of them, for that matter, for whoever was left on that ship was not who they once were.

Barry Bluejeans knew love and, turning his gaze from the Starblaster growing smaller and smaller above him to his body growing cold beneath him, he felt like love was what carved the hollow hole where his heart should have been.

Barry Bluejeans remembered. He remembered the static that clogged his brain as he looked at Taako, his best friend, his brother. He remembered how much he looked like Lup but, for the life of him, he couldn’t remember her. He remembered _begging_ Taako to kill him, and the horror on this familiar stranger’s face. He remembered the magic missiles flying straight towards him, and the way his back slammed into the railings as the last buffer before he tumbled back, dead, off the ship.

Barry Bluejeans, a lich, looked back up and could no longer see the Starblaster.

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans woke up that afternoon crawling out of a pod filled with thick, green fluid. His body felt unfamiliar, like he was a toddler barely capable of controlling it, and his head reeled with thoughts that he couldn’t comprehend as he tried to remember why the actual _fuck_ he was crawling bare-ass naked out of a _pod_ in the middle of a _cave._

There was a crate on the floor next to him with a pair of jeans messily shoved in it. Written on a note tacked onto it in sloppy handwriting were the words _Mask, Glaive, Stick, Umbrastaff?_

Barry didn’t know what any of it meant.

He pulled on the jeans. It felt like what he was supposed to do.

On the wall was a map with seven black circles drawn on it, all connected to each other with red strings.

Static.

A red robe was draped over a wooden chair. A dark blue patch with twelve smaller circles around the edge was sewn on.

Static.

He found what looked like a small coin amidst the mess of the wooden desk pressed up against the wall.

 _Your name is Bartholomew Sildar Jean Bluejeans-Hallwinter,_ his own voice said to him through it, but he didn’t remember recording it. _You are the_ ~~_Head Science Officer of the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration_ ~~ _~~.~~ You went on _ ~~_a hundred year journey_ ~~ _but now_ ~~_you don’t remember it_ ~~ _~~.~~ You have to find _ ~~_the Starblaster_ ~~ _~~.~~ You need answers. I know where you can find them, but you must trust me. _

He didn’t know if he trusted his own voice.

He couldn’t _understand_ his own voice.

 _Find_ _~~the rest of the IPRE~~ _ _~~.~~ Find Taako, and Magnus, and Merle, and Lucretia, and _ ~~_your captain_ ~~ _Davenport. Find_ ~~_Lup_ ~~ _~~.~~ You need to know _ ~~_where Lup went_ _._ _None of us know where she is._ _I_ _can’t find Lup_ ~~ _~~,~~ but you have to. _ ~~_She is the love of your life_ _._ _You need to find Lup_ ~~ _~~,~~ and then you can figure out the rest. _

Barry looked down at the coin and, swallowing thickly, with panic pouring into his gut, he put it back down on the table.

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans was a lich, and it had been exactly a year since he had been shot off the Starblaster.

He had lived such a long life, and spent most of it going back and forth between being alive and being dead and being undead, but he believed that this year was one of the worst he had ever experienced.

Barry Bluejeans knew love, but it felt distant and aching. He knew love like yearning for his body to form faster. He knew love like tearing apart maps and scraps of paper. He knew love like recording a message that he didn’t even know if he would be able to understand when he finally woke up.

He knew love, and it felt like it was killing him slowly.

He knew love, and it felt like he was back in an endless cycle, except now he was making the journey alone.

* * *

 

 _Your name is Bartholomew Jean Bluejeans. You are a scientist. You’ve lived for a very long time and, though it might not feel like it,_ ~~_you’ve been alive for well over a hundred years_ ~~ _~~.~~ Seeing you- well, seeing me in the tank… we look pretty good for our age. _

_You have to find your family. You don’t know where they are, and they don’t know where you are, but I know you can do it._

_As much as it hurts me to say this, you can’t start off finding_ ~~_Lup_ ~~ _~~.~~ Shit, you’re not even _ ~~_going to remember her when you hear me say this_ ~~ _~~.~~ But… you can’t start with her. _

_Find Lucretia. I- fuck, I don’t even know where she is, but I know she has something to do with this._

_After you find Lucretia, then you can find the rest of them. You can find out where she put Merle and Taako and Magnus and Davenport… and then you can find out where_ ~~_Lup_ ~~ _went._

 _I… I miss_ ~~_Lup_ ~~ _so goddamn much. You’ll feel it, too, but you won’t be able to know what it is. You’ll just feel hollow, and you won’t know why, but it’s because of her. She’s out there, I know it._ ~~_Maybe she’s a lich like I am right now, and she’s trying to make her own body. Maybe she’s alive out there, and she can’t find her brother._ ~~

_You have to find her._

_Good luck. You’re gonna need it._

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans, alive and listening to his own voice give him directions, took a moment during his trek across a large, empty field, and looked up to the sky.

Two moons, shining bright.

For a minute, he faltered.

Had there always been two moons?

And then he laughed at himself. It was a silly, stupid thought to have.

There had always been two moons in the sky. The memories were foggy, and they made Barry’s head hurt, but… it was because of his age, right? He was getting older. Perhaps forgetting was a part of getting older.

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans, once again a lich, looked up at the moon and its decoy, painted flawlessly into the memories of everyone who turned their heads upwards towards the heavens.

Staring up at it, he realized that, after all these years, he finally found Lucretia.

He wondered if she ever came down, or if she preferred staying up off the world that was once meant to become their home.

* * *

 

_Your name is Barry J. Bluejeans. You’re a man of science and have dedicated your life to research more than anything else. You love the way rain feels on your skin, and how it seems like it can just wash every bad thing away. You love the night sky like a certain someone did, like when it looks like it can swallow you whole and you’ll just become one of the million stars up there._

_You love love. You’re goddamn made of it._

_You might finally be close to finding your family. I know you don’t remember them, but I do, and I think I have enough memories for the both of us. Bodies ago, you heard about the esteemed wizard chef who poisoned a city. That was Taako and, as much as I hate to say it, I’ve lost sight of him since. Raven’s Roost is destroyed, and I just fucking hope Magnus got out of it. Merle’s got some kids—crazy, I know—but… I just got a feeling, alright?_

_Lucretia’s up in the sky. Maybe Davenport’s with her._

_No sign of_ ~~_Lup_ ~~ _~~.~~ No fucking goddamn sign. _

_… Anyways, Gundren Rockseeker is looking for a bodyguard to assist him on “the last job he’ll ever need to take.” Something about something powerful being stored in the lost mines of Phandalin._

_This body will be ready in mere minutes, and then you’re not going to remember recording this, but… shit, you gotta listen to me, alright? I’m you, and I need you to listen to me._

_You have to assist Gundren Rockseeker to Phandalin._

_Fuck knows what we’ll actually find, but, if it’s what I think it’ll be, then maybe one of them will show up, too._

* * *

 

“Bluejeans, eh?” the dwarven man sitting across from him in the poorly lit tavern grumbled, staring at him over the rim of his glass. “That’s quite a name you got.”

Barry Bluejeans blinked, his body still feeling like it wasn’t his own, and forced himself to nod. Bluejeans was his mother’s name. Marlena Bluejeans, with the softest grey hair and the warmest smile.

He remembered that.

Gundren Rockseeker eyed him over and huffed. “Don’t talk much either, huh?”

Barry shook his head.

He… he didn’t talk much, right? He grew up in a quiet house of a loud village. He grew up reading and staying inside and…

He never spent much time talking to people.

“Well, I appreciate that,” Gundren continued, downing the rest of his pint. “I’m here for business, not for new friends. Nothing’s worse than a fuckin’ chatty guy on the road with you.”

Barry shrugged. “Good for you, then.”

He felt like he wouldn’t have minded a long journey with people making it worthwhile, but maybe that was just him.

“I have some other guys that are helping out, too,” Gundren said. “Some people my, shit, eighth? cousin knows. They’re just bringing our shit over there. I guess they’re… trustworthy enough, but we’re still not leaving anything valuable _at all_ with them.”

Barry took a sip of his own drink. “Who are they?”

Gundren rolled his eyes. “They seem like a bunch of fuckin’ nobodies,” he said, shaking his head. “My cousin, Merle? Barely know ‘em. He’s a Highchurch and I’m a Rockseeker, and we’re separated by about six more family members. Then some guy, Magnus… Burnsides, or whatever. From Raven’s Roost, so good for him for surviving all the shit that happened there. And then some elf… Tay-ko? Taako? I don’t think he’s even from anywhere, he just showed up with this big, stupid, pointy hat.”

Barry had to will his heart to not beat into overdrive.

_Fuck knows what we’ll actually find, but, if it’s what I think it’ll be, then maybe one of them will show up, too._

They were all names that his heart would have died to remember and, through the fog and the ache, his brain just screamed, _You found them,_ though he didn’t know why he was so excited. They felt familiar, but not too familiar, but not too not-familiar. They were names that felt like he knew he was going home, but he didn’t know the way.

They were names that made him feel like he was getting a step closer to finding whoever the version of him that he couldn’t remember was telling him to.

Barry swallowed thickly. “What are we even looking for?”

Gundren then smirked behind his bushy beard. “You won’t even fucking believe me if I tell you.”

* * *

 

_Your name is Barry J. Bluejeans._

The rock was cold and damp beneath Barry’s body, or perhaps that was just him. He was, after all, stripped of half his clothes in the middle of a gerblin-infested cave.

He was also very, very hurt. The gerblins made sure of that.

_Your name is Barry J. Bluejeans._

It was his own voice, speaking to him from the back corners of his mind. Repeating to him mantras of who he was, thoughts and ideas that he could just barely grasp before they fell slick through his fingers.

_Your name is Barry J. Bluejeans._

A two-sunned planet. Light. A silver ship. Darkness, inescapable, consuming. Seven of them. Planes dancing in orbit. A woman with pink hair falling past her shoulders. A giant crystal. Waves crashing on the shore. A beautiful woman. A song, a confession. Judging skyscrapers reaching down from the heavens. Two red robes. One light. One artifact, two, five, seven. Seven of them. One dead, twenty, fifty, one-hundred. A song, a goodbye. Six of them. None of them. One red robe. Alive. One red robe. Alive. One red robe.

The love of his life.

Barry believed he was dying.

_Your name is Barry J. Bluejeans._

He gasped as a healing potion washed down his throat and, with a start, Barry shoved himself up. The cold grasp of death still wracked his nerves but- but the emptiness left behind felt far more fatal.

“My name is Barry J. Bluejeans.”

The memories—is that what they were?—flew from his mind like birds fleeing a storm, and Barry almost felt like reaching forward, as if that could stop his mind from forgetting things he couldn’t even remember in the first place.

All he had left to his name was himself and a hole inside of him that gnawed at his tender heart.

He felt so close and so far away- and yet, to what, he had no idea.

_Your name is Barry J. Bluejeans._

“My name is Barry J. Bluejeans.”

_You love love. You’re goddamn made of it._

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans was a lich again and, after watching the glass ball float back up to Lucretia’s moonbase with Merle, Magnus, and Taako inside, he decided that that was the last time.

He had been so close, so _fucking_ close. They had been right there, and then- and then the world started to end.

Or, at least, it ended for every person in Phandalin.

That was then, and now- now Barry had no time to waste. He had seen the eyes in the sky and, if the Hunger liked to stay consistent, they had less than a year left.

When one lived so many lives over the course of almost two centuries, one could tell that a year was nothing. Barry could blink, and then the world could be ending, swallowed up by a hunger that he would bet money on that no one remembered.

There was no more room for wasting time. No more room for waiting for bodies to grow back and for nights spend hunched over a map.

So much of the world was left for Barry to discover. There was an impending apocalypse to stop, a family to reunite with, and Lup. He had already spent so many years of his life refusing to leave the comfort of his study, but now he didn’t have that luxury any more.

He just hoped that this Bureau employee—Robbie, was it?—didn’t mind Barry taking over his corporeal form for a little while.

Lucretia was smart in setting up an anti-lich ward. It was like she knew he was coming.

The main dome of the Bureau of Balance was cast in darkness, all the candles and lanterns put out until the sun rose again. If it wasn’t for the dull red emitting from this possessed form, Barry didn’t even know if he would be able to navigate the base ahead of him, but he had no time to waste bemoaning his human eyes.

He knew he would find what he needed here. He didn’t know what it would be, but he knew it was _something_.

Lucretia was also smart in setting up a near unsolvable puzzle. She was a near genius, and the circles of lights travelling clockwise and counterclockwise and across and around would have dazed nearly anyone by the first round.

Fortunately, Barry was not just anyone, and he wondered if Lucretia had taken that into account.

Her quarters—her _true_ quarters, not the ones she kept as a guise for her employees—were eerily similar to her quarters on the Starblaster. Red curtains, almost identical to the ones their ship was decorated with, hung drawn closed over the windows. Piles and piles of notebooks and papers sat stacked around the room, some of the piles scattered across the floor, some lying carefully with ink drying on them. He saw sand-dollar coasters and paintings, sheet music and necklaces, mementos and more mementos from times that she let all of them forget.

Perhaps the most horrifying part, however, was the small voidfish on her desk, floating lazily in its tank with occasional waves of its tendrils.

And then, Barry heard something clatter to the floor behind him.

He spun around, the body he possessed nearly topelling over with the movement and, for a moment, all he saw was the empty doorway of Lucretia’s quarters and the long stretch of empty hallway beyond it.

And then, he looked down.

He hadn’t seen his Captain in so long that, finally coming face to face with the man who brought him into this adventure long ago, Barry thought the sheer force of the shock would knock him out of his corporeal form.

“Davenport,” he whispered, kneeling in front of the gnome. “Oh my god! Davenport, _Captain,_ don’t- don’t be afraid, alright? It’s me, it’s Barry, you know me, okay? And- and you need to listen to me, okay? _Cap’nport,_ I need you to-”

“Davenport,” Davenport said, eyes wide as he took a stumbling step back.

Barry furrowed his eyebrows. “Yeah, that’s you, but we all started calling you-”

“Davenport,” Davenport said again, and again, and he was scared, he was _terrified,_ and he was wordless. “Davenport. _Davenport!”_

And then, Davenport raised his right hand and snapped and, within a horrifying moment, Barry heard shrill alarms screaming into the quiet night.

“Wait, Davenport, please!” Barry, desperate and confused, reached out to the gnome but whoever his Captain once was was long gone and whoever was left just took another scared step back- into the legs of someone coming up behind him.

Barry looked up at the lone figure.

The first thing Barry noted was that Lucretia looked much, much older than what she should have been. If Barry was remembering correctly, she should’ve just been turning thirty but… the Lucretia staring down at him looked older, enough so that he had a feeling it was due to more than just stress and exhaustion.

The next thing he noticed was the shock behind her eyes.

“Lucretia,” was all Barry had to say for Lucretia’s shock to turn to absolute horror.

 _“Lucretia,”_ Barry repeated. “What are you- you can’t-”

And then, Lucretia was raising a hand up at him and, from her palm, a bright blue light was taking shape.

“Lucretia, wait!”

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her voice cracking and barely loud enough for Barry, no more than a foot away from her, to hear.

The last thing Barry saw before he was ripped from the base were the tears streaming down Lucretia’s face.

* * *

 

His body was coming along nicely.

It had to be: there was no time left for errors. It was this body that he would either see the rest of his very long life in or be consumed in but, either way, it was his body.

Taako, Merle, and Magnus—friends who didn’t remember him, near strangers who didn’t trust him—believed that they still had two relics left to find but, if they looked to the white oak staff clutched tightly in their Director’s hands, they would realize that they were much closer to their goal, and to the fruition of _her_ plan, than they thought.

The gauntlet went first. Then the oculus. The sash followed in suit and, finally having grown apart from its twin, so did the stone. The chalice was gone, and the staff long reclaimed.

All that was left was a single bell.

How fitting it was that it fell back into the hands of liches.

He no longer had the luxury or the comfort to figure out how the twin liches Edward and Lydia found the bell, or the painful irony that came along with it.

After all, this world was to end the next day, but Barry wasn’t losing this one.

* * *

 

_Your name is Barry Bluejeans. You are afraid of the dark. Your very favorite thing in the world is swimming in very cold water on a very hot day. You get ill when you drink milk or anything with milk in it. Your father, Greggor, died when you were too young to know him. Your mother, Marlena, had soft gray hair when you were born, and was the most wonderful woman who ever lived._

_You remember them but you have forgotten so much. And right now, in this moment, you feel a dull weight in your chest. It’s the weight of a love that defined and redeemed you but you’ve forgotten who that weight belongs to. Barry, I’m you, just moments ago and I remember who that weight belongs to, and I can help you remember it too._

* * *

 

Bartholomew Sildar Jean Bluejeans-Hallwinter knew love. He studied it, consumed it, let it become everything that made Bartholomew Sildar Jean Bluejeans-Hallwinter who he fucking was.

He knew love like the longing for a life so grand, he could only wish to read about it in books that seemed too good to be true. He knew love like research and essays piling up on a desk he made himself. He knew love like he knew soft, grey hair and a smile that warmed the earth.

He knew love like a job offer that would give him everything he could dream of. He knew love like a clean and pressed red robe, a blue patch sewn in the breast. He knew love like he knew his six co-workers: hesitant and formal, at first, only to soon beckon them with open arms and a listening ear.

He knew love like he knew a family of mongoose and a language that lived on only one planet but would become known on a hundred.

He knew love like a tainted planet that found the faith that would allow it to live.

He knew love like a promise to never let any of them reach the point of destruction. He knew love like the realization that there was no one else he would want to see the end of the world with.

He knew love like rolling waves and sandy beaches, like gifts and paintings and frights and a board cutting across the ocean. He knew love like he never knew it before.

He knew love like vibrant cities and valiant teams and brave acts committed to peace keeping. He knew love like finally knowing the hate that had been following them for decades.

He knew love like a song. He knew love like the flowing of notes and the peace of rests. He knew love like the melody of a violin and the harmony of a piano. He knew love like whispered conversations and careful kisses. He knew love.

He knew love like fear, like darkness, like waiting for the love to turn the lights back on.

He knew love like the best day ever, like the cracking of magic, like the gift of forever.

He knew love like an umbrella wielded with a smirk and a steady hand.

He knew love like the undeniable craving for normalcy.

He knew love like a heart breaking over and over again until it should have killed him.

He knew love like mending himself against all odds.

He knew, he knew, he _knew-_

He knew love like an umbrella broken into two perfect halves.

_“It’s weird,” Lup had said long ago, grinning up at a sky bursting with magic. “We will outlive ourselves. One day, our bodies will be gone but we'll still be here.” She turned to look at him, the soft grass pressing against her face and into her hair, and she smiled. “Two liches living longer than we’re supposed to, in a world that will just have to accept that we’re never leaving.”_

_Barry, his heart swelling, had smiled back. “Forever is a long time, you know. We might even outlive- every fucking world there is.”_

_Lup, with an easy grin, sighed as if the thought was merely a dream to her. “We could only be so lucky.”_

_“Oh, you sound so hopeful.”_

_“Maybe I’m getting used to this whole apocalypse thing,” she said, pushing herself up on her elbows. She stared out at the calm ocean, not even a single ripple disturbing it. Her eyes shined with brimming power, though it was no match for what rushed through her veins. “And forever is_ _a very long time.”_

_Barry smirked up at her. “Don’t get cold feet on me now.”_

_“I never would. Partners until whatever’s-after-death do us part.” Then, lacing their fingers together with all the softness of the grass and the wind and the life that surrounded them, she grinned down at him and said, “But if we’re doing this forever thing, then we’ll need girls’ weekends and boys’ nights. Don’t wanna become some grouchy old lich couple two hundred years into forever.”_

_Barry snorted. “My love, you make an excellent point.”_

_“Of course I do,” Lup said with a laugh and a flick of her hair over her shoulder. “Rule number one: Lup is always right, and when she’s not, a new rule gets made.” She laughed again, bubbling with happiness and love, and Barry wished to capture this moment for forever and whatever came next. She then shrugged, looking back up at the sky. “Who knows, maybe I’ll even take a decade long vacation. See the sights of wherever we end up. Go on an adventure. A decade is, like, a hot minute in the midst of forever. Maybe I’ll even start tomorrow. Say ‘hey’ at the start of each cycle, and then gone for the other three hundred and sixty five days.” She shot a smirk down at him. “What do ya’ think about that, Bluejeans?”_

He knew love like watching red smoke and blinding sparks fly out of the umbrastaff, pillars and pillars of magical energy pouring out as a beloved and vibrant spectral form spun with a flourish, her skeletal hands sweeping out before pointing down at her twin brother.

_Barry, having squeezed her hand before pressing a kiss to the inside of her wrist, smiled up at her and said, “I’ll be here when you come back.”_

He knew love like keeping a promise.

* * *

 

Against all odds, the world survived that day.

The moments right after the end of the end of the world were perhaps the most numbing, yet in the best way possible. Barry remembered watching as pillars and pillars of inky hatred became infused with the brightest light that he had ever seen. He remembered watching as the Starblaster came swirling down, barely harmed, and landed with a quiet _thud_ and a whooping cheer from somewhere that Barry wasn’t paying attention to.

He remembered watching as Davenport, their captain, came down the walkway, poised as ever and, looking at Barry, nodded with a small smile behind his mustache. Remembered as Lucretia, on the paler side and shaking, using her staff as a walking stick, came down after Davenport with a grin on her face, tired and perhaps the happiest Barry had seen her.

Remembered as Taako came down waving his glaive with one hand and straightening his hat with the other, his eyes shining in the sun that finally dared to peek through. Remembered as Merle followed behind, closing his bible and hugging it securely with one hand, his tree one, while the other threw the onlookers a huge wave paired with a grin. Remembered as Magnus, strapping his flaming sword to his back, looked up to the clearing sky and, halting his step only for a moment, smiled.

Remembered as Lup murmured, “Holy fucking shit,” next to him.

Lucretia had nodded an affirmation. Taako, Magnus, and Merle had talked about a new god they needed to worship, and they were _laughing,_ tears collecting in the corners of their eyes. Davenport, looking up at Barry, the first and only science officer for the Institute of Planar Research and Exploration, had stuck his hand out.

For a moment, nothing felt real. For a moment, it felt like Barry was back out of his body, watching himself from an outsider’s perspective because, despite the painstaking years put into ensuring that _this_ was the ending they got, having it finally secured in their fingertips… for a moment, Barry waited for the illusion to disperse.

And then, Davenport cocked his head and smirked, motioning for Barry’s hand with his own.

And then, Barry laughed and tightly shook his captain’s hand and, in that moment, he had never been more grateful for the rise and fall of his lungs and the beat of his heart.

He remembered Merle looking up at him and laying a hand on his hip. “You know,” he said. “Now that I’ve met, like, a fuckton of gods, I really gotta say… I am deeply sorry for thinking you were a major douche-” Barry barked out a laugh “-Listen, I know I already apologized but… I think I have some new divinity to me? Like, I’ve met _three gods,_ Barry, that’s some wild shit. I feel like I gotta repent for something, you know?”

Barry rolled his eyes, laughter still shaking him to his very core. “And I’m sorry for making you stab your hand with a fork so that we could make a map with your blood.”

Merle stared at him blankly for a moment before gasping. “Holy shit, you did do that!” He smacked Barry’s hip. “Real douche move their, Barry.”

He remembered Magnus locking eyes with him and shaking his head, laughing. “Holy shit,” he said.

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Barry said, laughing, too. “Holy shit.”

“Like- that motherfucker had been following us around for a _century!”_

“I know!”

“And we just fucking _destroyed_ it!”

“I _know!”_

“Like, Merle made a column of fucking knives and Taako blinded it, like, four times and I hit it real fucking good, like- holy fucking shit!” Magnus’s grin then softened and, quickly, he rubbed the corners of his eyes. “We- we fucking _did it.”_

Barry smiled, forcing his voice around the lump in his own throat. “We fucking did it.”

He remembered Taako sliding up alongside him, practically draping himself over Barry. “You know, _Barold…”_

Barry smirked and raised an eyebrow. “Yes, Taako?”

“You know,” he repeated, tilting his head so that his hat all but smacked Barry in the face, “You and Lup might be some super spooky lich duo that, like, has a love that persevered through all dangers and, like, the _apocalypse_ and all that shit…”

“But…?”

Taako smirked. “But I’m dating the _literal_ grim reaper. Like, I’m dating _Death._ I think it’s safe to say that I beat you two out for the most fucking badass and metal relationship.”

Barry slid a glare at Taako, though the look was easily betrayed by the smile he was failing at holding back. “One hundred years of friendship,” he said. “And this is how you treat me.”

Taako shrugged. “Sorry, bubbaleh,” he said. “Been waiting to tell you but, like, you were a spooky lich who spoke in fucking riddles most of the time.”

Barry laughed. “Just- just don’t let your boyfriend throw us in lich prison and we’ll be even.”

“Oh, _trust me,_ my dude, Kravitz will be sleeping on the couch _forever_ if you two get arrested for fucking death crimes.”

He remembered turning to Lup, and her turning to him. He remembered her cupping his face with her spectral hands as best as she could and, with what could only be described as the closest she could get to smiling, she asked, “Still wanna blow yourself up, Barold?”

Barry had laughed through tears that suddenly clogged his throat. “I missed my chance, Lup. The drama’s over.”

Lup leaned forward and rested her forehead against Barry’s. He couldn’t feel her, not like how he wanted to, but the warmth from her spectral form embraced him well enough to be a fine replacement for now. “Would’ve been really romantic if we both beefed it,” she said before sighing. “But, unfortunately, the world isn’t ending anymore.”

“Bummer,” Barry said, grinning. “We could’ve finally found out what came after second-death.”

“Well-” Lup’s voice suddenly hitched and she laughed, and Barry’s heart clenched with thousands of memories that came back to him. “Looks like we’re stuck together until we find out.”

“Together forever.” Barry swallowed thickly before continuing, his voice wavering, “And then whatever comes next.”

“Forever’s a long time, Barold,” she teased, though Barry could hear the shake and sincerity of her own words.

“And, still, I’ll always want more.”

“You’re such a sap,” Lup forced out, laughing, her form thriving with magical energy. “I-” Her voice then softened, and she did her best to caress Barry’s cheek. “I missed you so much.”

Barry was unable to stop a tear from dripping down his cheek, another one quickly following it down. “I missed you too, Lup,” he whispered.

“And I love you. I love you, I love you, I fucking _love you,_ and imagine that I’m kissing you in between each word because- because _fuck_ I would if I could, and I love you-”

It would take time, but the world would heal. There would be good days and bad days, days that made them wonder how the world could ever possibly end and days that made them wonder how it didn’t. There would be long chats to be had, explanations and questions and apologies and fighting and forgiveness. There would be a time when Barry would watch Lup stumble clumsily out of a regeneration tank, her dark brown hair dripping and her footsteps unsteady as she remembered what truly living was like. There would be love, _so much love._

That was what this all was about, really: love.

* * *

 

Barry Bluejeans knew love.

Barry loved the comfortable home he and Lup lived in. The foundation was sturdy, the study large, and the kitchen even more so. The weather treated them kindly, and the neighbors even more so, especially considering that most of them were his family. He and Lup hadn’t lived there for very long yet, but he knew he would never forget the choruses of, “Hey Barold, you coming for dinner tonight?” and, from those who couldn’t understand, “Don’t you get tired of seeing them all the time?”

Respectively, the answers were _yes, always,_ and _no, never._

Barry loved his friends, and a century together would never be enough.

His friends called him _Barry_ and _Barold_ and _Bluejeans_ and, when they really wanted his attention, _Sildar_ and _Jean_ and _Barry Jean_ and, only when they were desperate, _Bartholomew._ His full name rarely made appearances and, if Barry was remembering correctly, the last time he heard it was when Lup, deep into the night she got her body back, told him, “Bartholomew Sildar Jean Bluejeans-Hallwinter, have I ever told you that you’re a fucking genius? Like, _fuck,_ I’ve missed feeling and being able to do my hair and kissing you and-”

He loved his new friends, too.

Carey and Killian had a beautiful wedding and, as the moon rose high and shimmered off of the Still-Water Sea, the remaining guests poured out of the reception hall and into the warm summer night. Magnus laughed and scooped up Carey, swinging her around and hollering, “My best friend got fucking married!” Killian, talking with Avi, broke whatever she was saying to watch her wife with a grin, only to be nudged in the side by her smirking friend. Taako and Kravitz (who had the bouquet thrown at him after an elaborate plot involving the brides and Angus) stood at where grass met sand and, ducking their heads close together, spoke intimately. Merle, Davenport, and Lucretia sat a few feet away from the water’s edge; Davenport was pointing upwards and, though Barry couldn’t hear what he was saying, from the way Merle and Lucretia looked up with awe, he could only imagine the way he was describing their cosmos.

Barry himself stood at the water’s edge, far enough away to be on his friends without being isolated. The water lapped at his bare feet and his jeans were rolled up just enough to avoid being soaked. The earth was comforting, nurturing, beneath him and, taking a deep breath and letting the salty air fill his lungs, he felt like he could stay in this moment, surrounded by pure bliss and happiness, forever.

A soft hand slid into his own, and he smiled out at the water.

“Whatcha’ looking at?” Lup stood close beside him, resting her head on his shoulder.

With his free hand, he pointed out along the edge where the sea met the sky. “How, if you look closely enough, you can see where the earth begins to curve and, just beyond that, millions of other people are just- continuing on with their life.”

“Nerd alert,” Lup whispered. She pressed a kiss to Barry’s shoulder.

Barry smirked. “It’s the best part about me.”

“Very true,” Lup murmured, her words slightly muffled as she spoke against his shoulder. “Your nerdy charm plus the was your ass looks in jeans? It was love at first sight.”

Barry, letting his head fall back, laughed. Lup laughed, too, and, going up on her toes, she pressed a kiss to Barry’s cheek.

“I still remember how we first met, you know,” she said. Barry looked down at her and met her smile with his own.

“I do, too,” he said. “I thought you were the most beautiful woman I had ever seen.” He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. “You still are.”

Even in the darkness, Barry could see Lup’s face flush as she wrapped her arms around Barry. Barry, securely, hugged an arm around her, and Lup rested her head against his chest.

“You were really cute.” Lup looked up at him. “I was just trying to find Taako and there you were! Barry J. Bluejeans, in all your glory, wearing your best jeans.”

Barry smiled. “I actually remember the jeans I was wearing that day,” he said. “Those were the _good_ jeans.”

Lup laughed and craned her head up to kiss his jaw. “They were,” she said. “And you know what I thought?”

Barry hummed.

_“Damn, he looks fine.”_

Barry laughed again, this time louder, and picked Lup up in his arms and spun her. “That’s my girl,” he said, and they both laughed and Lup wrapped her arms around his neck. “With an excellent type, if I may say so myself.”

“I can say the same thing about you, Barold.” She smiled, and the stars reflected in her eyes. “So I guess we’re pretty well off, huh?”

Barry nodded, grinning. “Yeah, I guess after—what? seventy-something years?—we can finally say that we’re a good match.”

Lup nodded, too, with a huge grin on her face. “Oh, yeah, just decades of casual dating.”

“Us becoming liches? Basically just us celebrating our first anniversary.”

“Uh, no, you dingus! That was us getting Taako’s approval!”

Barry smirked. “And if he said no?”

Lup shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done something I wasn’t supposed to.”

Barry and Lup laughed and, when their grins fell into something softer, something reserved only for the two of them, Barry, still holding Lup securely around her waist, leaned down and kissed her.

In that moment, it felt like they were the only two people left in the entire planarverse.

“You know,” Lup whispered when they pulled away, her forehead resting against Barry’s as her brown eyes met his blue, “We’re basically married. I’m ninety-nine percent sure that a wedding ceremony and a necromantic ritual are basically the same thing.”

Barry smiled. “Still, I should find you a nice ring.”

“We could have a dinner, too.”

“Flowers?”

“Oh, absolutely. And I assume that we’d be dressed in our best?”

“I’ll break out the _great_ jeans.”

“Oh, _Barold,_ I’m already swooning!”

They laughed again.

“Well, we-” Barry began before Taako called out to them, “Hey, lovebirds! Get your asses over here! We’re getting food and more drinks!”

“Great!” Lup called back. “I’m fucking starving!”

“Yeah, goofus, that’s why we’re doing it!”

Lup, dignified and sophisticated, stuck her tongue out at her brother and flipped him off. Taako, mock offended, gasped.

“Ooh, get him, Lup!” Magnus laughed as Merle, with a smirk, said, “Now, kids, play nice!”

Lup laughed and looked back at Barry. “Well, let’s go then,” she said. “But what were you about to say?”

Barry smiled down at her. “That we have all the time in the world to plan a wedding.”

Lup stared up at him and, for just a second, Barry watched as her eyes glimmered with unshed tears before she laughed and rubbed her eyes. “Look at you, making me all emotional,” she said, laughing and grinning and pulling him down for a final kiss. “Bartholomew Sildar Jean Bluejeans-Hallwinter, I love you so, _so_ much.”

Barry, a smile nearly permanently etched onto his face, said, “I love you, too, Lup. I’ll love you forever, and for whatever comes after.”

Then, hand in hand, laughing all the way down the beach and into the kitchen and whatever awaited them once the night was over, Barry and Lup ran.

Barry Bluejeans knew love.

How could he not? He was made of it.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so, so SO MUCH for reading!!! ngl it feels weird that this fic is over bc i've been working on it since, like, the beginning of april and i've grown super attached to it omg
> 
> as always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated, along with likes and reblogs on tumblr!!
> 
> ohsweetflips.tumblr.com :) <3


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